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I ,'. ‘ “III: III..." . .‘ I I IIII'IIII III .II'IIII‘,I 'IIJI'III‘IIIIII III' '. I . ’ fir! ‘Il,,1|l,u,, 0|. I ' . I, ,l I. I. IIII', I L I II I gw'v’HHIIII'IIHII ,II ,II, ‘IIII " ,III . 'V. "l ‘,I .. ' 4 '. :1 , 'y I ' ',I.,I ' (5 ,pI I | l a - IIIIIIIII I I I I ‘II I I I I I III, I” I I . , . II '2 I ,, . I. I , , I I . " I II I I' ' 'I‘ II M . II I I ' ,I ,.,'I ' ,lhl . I I I, I I-I q,I ‘ II . , ‘I II . .. . I-I» 4~- . I I' ...Inmu . I ' Ilhl'lfl I'm‘,,,,_II,III . It... llh‘n m'IIHLHI. ..I II‘II‘ 'Ifln um I l II \l I my“; I I LIBRARY Illlllll glllloo Michigan Stat: ’ ‘ WW~ V} This is to certify that the thesis entitled HISTORIOGRAPHY, HISTORICAL THEORY, AND THE ADVANCE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS presented by C. WILLIAM BARNES has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for M.A. degreein HIStOI’Y Major professor Date 8-3—79 0-7639 HISTORIOGRAPHY, HISTORICAL THEORY, AND THE ADVANCE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS By C. William Barnes A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of History 1979 ABSTRACT HISTORIOGRAPHY, HISTORICAL THEORY, AND THE ADVANCE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS C. William Barnes The work is divided into two parts. The first two chapters, Epilogue and Prologue, are taken up with a philosophical inquiry into the changing relationship between discourse and the historical enterprise. Chapter Three discusses the value of Structuralism as an historiographical paradigm. Chapter Four outlines a theory of social change which asserts that changes toward a more advanced system of social relations are accompanied by changes in the form of human consciousness, in personality structure, and in sensory bias. Changes in the form of consciousness are indicated by, and manifested through, changes in the four “metaphorical systems", language, mathematics, money, and art. Chapters Five and Six trace developments in the four metaphorical systems as they worked to radically alter two societies, Hellenic Greece and Early Modern Europe. In both cases, these societies went from oral to visual, communal to private, static to dynamic. This work is dedicated to Richard Thomas, whose brilliant mind and warm heart have always been devoted to human brotherhood. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend a grateful thank you to two members of my committee, Dr. Robert Duggan and Dr. Josef Konvitz, for their guidance and helpful critical advice. Special thanks goes to my Chairman Dr. Donald Lammers, for giving me his unflagging encouragement and, more importantly, allowing an untested graduate student wide-open freedom to pursue his ideas, and find his own way through to the conclusion. I think this was an act of uncommon intellectual courage, and was worth more to me than a thousand helpful references. Thanks also goes to Pat Beach, Elsie Guy, and Barb Gaffield for typing the manuscript. Last, but, of course, not least thanks to my wife Nancy who told me I would make it when I knew I wouldn't. TABLE OF CONTENTS Part One EPILOGUE PROLOGUE THEORETICO-HISTORICO-PSCHEO-STRUCTURES A HYPOTHETICAL EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL CHANGE Part Two INTRODUCTION THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF A VISUAL BIAS IN THE MIND AND PERSONALITY OF ANTIQUITY Language Mathematics Money Art Personality and Society THE PROCESS RECONSTITUTED Language Mathematics Money Art Personality and Society BIBLIOGRAPHY iv 1 - 25 25 - 38 39 - 57 58 - 103 104 - 107 108 - 155 108 - 115 115 - 127 127 - 140 140 - 144 144 - 149 157 - 289 157 - 185 185 - 213 213 - 245 245 - 253 253 - 252 289 - 298 PART ONE EPILOGUE The French word epilogue has, like many words, a long etymology which links it with classical Greece. Epilogue derives from epilogos which means "to speak upon" or "to speak after".. Traditionally, the epilogue is the peroration of a speech, a summation, conclusion or restatement of the preceeding work. Why then have I chosen to antecede this work with the epilogue? "To speak upon" is to discourse. It is to reveal something through discourse. But is is also to present that thing in discourse. Now, to reveal and to present are not the same. To reveal through dis- course suggests that only the object of discourse occupies the attention. To present in discourse implies that attention is focused upon the rela- tion between discourse and its object; that discourse, interposed between its object and the attention, can disclose of the contours of its object only what are in fact discourse's own contours. In actuality, to reveal is really to present. What is revealed through discourse is nothing more than what is presented in discourse. But it is not until we recog- nize that discourse is never neutral that the second condition of ”to speak upon" becomes a part of consciousness. Let us look more closely at the above analysis of discourse and draw out any implications which may silently reside therein. It is my contention that when discourse is seen as both environment within which moves and acquires form and object which thought manipulates for specific purposes, the nature of historiography is profoundly altered. The remainder of this epilogue will discuss in this order: I) the stages of historiography; II) the importance of the final stage compared to preceeding stages; III) the renewing of history in historiography; IV) mapping the new contours of historiography. It has been said that, "the basic problem of historical thought is to construct a verbal model of the historical process."1 Within this statement are explicitly listed three of the parts of historiography; the historical process, historical thought or the conceptualization of the historical process, and the verbal model of the historical process. We can also infer from the statement two other parts of historio- graphy, the historian and the reading public.i Historiography can be considered a relationship between the historical process, the historian and the reading public. But how are they related and does this relation affect them? Defined simply, historiography is the revealing of the historical process. But this does not tell us how the historical process if revealed, by whom it is revealed, or to whom it is revealed. However, this is no mystery.0bviously the revealer is the historian, we know he constructs verbal models so he reveal to a reading public, and he reveals via the verbal model, via discourse. So we have answered the question, "how are they related?" They are related by discourse. But the second question, "does this relation affect them?" requires an answer. Defined a bit more complexly, historiography is the revealing of the historical process to the historian through discourse upon it by others. The second is the revealing of the historical process to others by the historian in his own discourse upon‘it. With these two intrusions added, and from the position of the historian, historiography is acquisition of the knowledge of the historical porcess revealed in others discourse, for presentation in a verbal mocel to a reading public. How is this knowledge acquired? To what is the revealing of the historical process directed? Knowledge is acquired by, and the revealing is directed at, the conceiving intellect. The intellect also constructs the verbal model. The intellect takes what is revealed to it, builds it into conceptual configurations, and constructs a verbal model of these configurations. Thus, the verbal model of the historical process is really a verbal model of the conceptual configuration of what was revealed to the intellect. Our new definition" Historiography is acquiring the knowledge of the historical process presented in the discourse upon it by others, building that knowledge into conceptual configurations, constructing a verbal model of theose configurations, and presenting the verbal model to a reading public. But here we must re—introduce the qualification of discourse itself. Discourse as the "to present"; the disclosure of the contours of the object only to the extent of the contours of discourse itself. Discourse appears in every stage, in every part. Discourse is the relation. In a sense, the knowledge of the historical process is a knowledge of the discourse about it. For our purposes, that is for constructing a defin- ition of historiography, discourse limits what is knowable at every stage. From the historical process to the verbal model of the historical process discourse intervenes continously. Historiography, in this complex sense, is the acquisition of the knowledge of the historical process presented in the discourse of others, the building of that knowledge into conceptual configurations whose accurate reconstruction of the historical process is limited by what is presented in the discourse of others and by the ability of the historian to grasp what is presented, the construction of a verbal model of those configurations whose potential for accurate reconstruction of the historical process is limited by all previous limitations-~the discourse of others, the grasp of the historian, and, of course, the hiStorians command of his own discourse about his concepts--, by the inherent incapability of any verbal model to present thought in its entirety, and by all the problems of communication from one person to another even under the most intimate conditions. It is to these problems of communi- cation that we now turn. Until now we have concentrated upon the diachronic relation between the historian, the historical process, thought about the historical process, and the verbal model. We have been concerned with pointing out the epistemological problems encountered by the historian when he attempts to bring the past into the present. We have tried to outline the conditions for answering the question, "How much of the past is presented to the historian after all the interventions of discourse? With the construction of the verbal model, however, the historian is confronted with a synchronic relation that is also mediated by discourse. What are the :epitemological problems in communicating the knowledge of the historical procoes to one's contemporaries? How much can the historian present to his time? Once again I am concerned here only with an investigation into the theoretical conditions within which an answer to the question can be formulated. I am not interested in providing, nor am I prepared to provide, a detailed answer to the question in an empirical sense. That would require a complete elucidation of the influence and relation between language, thought, historical "facts" etc. Such an investigation and elucidation, though attractive and necessary for a larger work, would lead me into areas I hesitate to trod, and even if I could trod them comfortably, I fear the historical analysis would never get under way. Nevertheless, it is necessary, I feel, for historians to investigate the epistemological parameters of thier discipline and challenge their supposed mystery. We should come to grips with the inherent limitations the restricting factors that make historiography possible at all, but whose immutability should never be accepted as forever unbreakable. To return to our quesiton of the synchronic epistemological problems in historiography. When a historian "speaks upon" the historical process he presents not the full historical process, but the part which was presented and limited by the successive interventions of discourse. The verbal model is in the postiion of the "to speak upon." It is the epilogos of all that preceeded it. But the construction of the verbal model takes place not just within the isolation of the historian's mind, in that tension which is bound up with the presentation of thought in verbal form. The construction of the verbal model takes place between the hiStorians interior tension and those extant possibilities for verbal modeling which are considered acceptable. Thought about the construction of a verbal model of the historical process is inherently, profoundly contemporary. To a significant degree the structuring of the verbal model is preconditioned by those contemporary conventions among the practitioners of history which describe the acceptable presentation of thought about history. Even more, to an equally significant degree and in a broader context, the construction of the verbal model is harnessed to social conventions which describe the acceptable presentation of thought. Thus, the historian, if he is to communicate easily, must acknowledge both general social conventions concerning the proper construction of verbal models, and more specific conventions of the same nature in the field of historical discourse. The historian's responsibility to the hiStorical process for as accurate a presentation as possible is coupled with his responsibility to his peers and the broader society for accept- ability of presentation of the historical process. The present intrudes into the past when the historian must reveal the historical process to the present. And this revealing of the past to the present is a record of the present for the future. If the historical process is to be understood in its totality, the historian must consider the conditions within which discourse upon the historical process took place, the conditions within which it can take place today, and the differences between these conditions. But any' discourse upon these differences is subject to the same limitations that discourse introduced in the presentation of the historical process. That is, these differences can only be revealed in their presentation within the confines of the present synchronic conditions of discourse. Every set of conditions of discourse thus becomes annexed to the historical process. By introducing conditions which limit the revealing of the historical process, the original historical process is compressed by the piling up of those conditions within which it appeared, and the new conditions within which it appears. The final stage of the historio- graphical process is the consideration of the conditions within which discourse can take place right now. The present surrounds the past. But to conceive historiography in this manner requires us to conceive historiography as an object of discourse that can be spoken upon. The historian to do this must surround the present. He msut try and perceive the very conditions within which he finds himself and ”speak upon" them. But this attempt to "speak upon" contemporary conditions is done within the synchronic conditions of discours, within those conditions which allow him to speak at all. How this delimma can be resolved I will leave for later sections to explain. Epilogue means "to speak upon". Traditionally, the epilogue was the concludion or summation of a work: a speaking upon its contents. However, I have tried to present an investigation into the "to speak upon" which radically opposes and overwhelms the traditional notion of what an epilogue is. For me the epilogue is first not last. The epilogue is not just the conclusion of an investigation, but a "speaking upon" the conditions, the form, the environment of discourse within which the work as a whole--and this includes the epilogue upon the content-~appears in its contemporality. For me the epilogue is not a thing to be placed at the end of a work like a statue at the terminus of a garden path. The epilogue is an action. It is the action of presenting the topology of the garden itself. "To speak upon" is to be forever in the act of speaking. It is always contemporary, immediate, internal, within ourselves. The epilogue, then, is "to speak upon" those essential relations of dis- course that fuse past and present into a single epistemological structure. II "Final states illuminate the process from which they result as much as that process is necessary to the development of those states.... A study of function at the terminal stages leads to an understanding of the history of the structure from which this functioning succeeds.”2 As I attempted to show in the first section, the final stage of the historiographical process is to speak upon the current conditions of discourse which surround and give form to contemporary historiography. Now, if Piaget is correct in his assertion than an understanding of the history of a structure is, or can be, acquired through a study of function at the terminal stages, then a study of function at the stage of the speaking upon the current conditions of discourse should "illuminate" the historiographical structure. But what would a study of function at the terminal stages look like? What would be the object of teh study? There are two ways in which a study of function could be conceived: 1) as a study of the functioning of elements within the terminal state-- this to illuminate the history of their functioning--or 2) as a study of the function of the terminal stage to previous stages. However, even before we embark on either study we must again concede that discourse is central to either since it is through the employ of discourse that any illuminating of elements or terminal states to pre- vious stages is presented. Thus, the elements of the terminal stage would be the elements of discourse, that is, words and word relations. The functioning of the terminal stage-~the stage of speaking upon the con- temporary conditions of discourse--to the previous stages of the historiographical process, would be to fuse the past and present in discourse, and get, thereby, beyond the present.3 We are inexorably led to conclude again that the structure of dis- course can never reveal the structure of historical events. It can only restructure them, present them to a reader not to a participator. Discourse is never transparent. It is not a clear pane of glass through which our minds can gaze back into time without obtrusion. As Michel Foucault has recently reminded us, "discourse must not be referred to the distant presence of the origin, but treated as and when it occurs."4 Discourse is a filter of considerable efficiency and duration, It can be imposingly opaque. But this realization of the opaqueness of discourse indicates the essential question of historiography--the question of what can we know? Or better, how do we know we know? In speaking upon the current conditions that structure discourse, the structure of discourse and its elements are exposed to the search- light of thought. In this reflexive use of discourse, discourse is no longer the medium through which history is transmitted but an object, a fact, among the other historical facts the historian sets himself to present to his readers. ‘The objectification of discourse is what illuminates the historio- graphical stages. For when discourse is turned upon itself, discourse becomes an object of discourse, as all other things are objects of dis- course. -Discourse about history is not external to the historiographical process but within it, interacting and relating with every other part, with history itself. But all the interactions and relations between the historical process, previous discourse, and the contemporary discourse, IO since they are presented in contemporary discourse, can be obscured, a if analytical care is not used, by the reflexivity of contemporary dis- course. For one must conceive contemporary discourse as operating within a system of historiographical relations while at the same time using it to describe those relations; When discourse is used reflexively it can only be its own image. Prior to the awareness that discourse about history was within the historiographical structure, the relations thought to exist between historical events were assumed to be indicated through the historian's discourse. Discourse about history was simply a medium of transmission, it was outside historiography. But when discourse about history is conceived to be within historiography, then discours must have a relation to the other parts of historiography. But how can the idea that con- temporary discourse is part of the historiographical structure be presented except in the form and under the conditions of contemporary discourse? Thus, we can see that the form of presentation is the ultimate barrier to comprehension. That is, the conception that contem- proary discourse is within historiography can only be presented in the very form and under the very conditions it seeks to explain. Contemporary discourse about a historiographical structure of which it is a part both indicates and is indicated by itself. Discourse curves in upon itself like Einstein's space. This curvature has to be perceived if we are to move beyond the present. For the reflexive use of discourse completes the present, it makes the present an object of discourse, something "to speak upon." Discourse upon the present, if it is to point beyond the present, must indicate something about present conditions which cannot be indicated ll within those conditions. That something is the relativity of the present conditions. The discourse upon the present is , so to speak, the presentation of a purely metatheoretical5 perception in the garb of mere theory. It is an injection of a kind of knowledge into a structure of knowledge that could not have been generated from within. And this injection of a new kind of knowledge releases to the consciousness all previous kinds of knowledge. By seeing the present we see the past.6 Reflexivity completes a structure by curving itself. This completion presents all previous relations as contemporary relations, as relations that are understood only in contemporary terms.7 From then on, any knowledge must come from outside the completed structure. III Historical processes both cease and begin with discourse about them. They cease in that they cease to be historic and instead enter into, are brought within, present day discourse. They are made into a Apresent" by the historian. But also, they cease in that they terminate in dis- course. Their internal relations are Cloaked with language relations. They become objects of discourse. They are frozen, formalized, subjects for critical evaluation. In becoming subjects for critical evaluation through their objectification in discourse, historical processes begin anew. Theie hidden internal relations are explored, the structure of interaction of their parts is exposed, their meanings are exhumed for all to see. They take-on new for, the vitality of the life of discourse is breathed into them, and, like Lazarus, they are brought back to con- sciousness. The historian retrieves them from obsurity through discourse. Historical inquiry is humanity's ‘mnemonics. 12 But in this gaining of new life the old life ceases. Historical processes become a part of the processes of discourse and only remain alive in discourse. Should discourse about them cease, their life would end at that moment. However, this is not all. When historical processes become dependant upon diScourse for their life, their structure is absorbed into.the structure of discourse and can only be revealed, indicated, by discourse. Historical porcesses become ideas, and once they become ideas they are expressible only in words and word relations. They become universals. They are named.8 They no longer speak for themselves but must be repre-- sented--that is, re-presented--to contemporary consciousness in word form. Word forms are the metaphors9 of historical processes, the presentation of history in symbols, the "throwing together" of the historical process with its representative. Historical processes become embedded in a particular arrangement of symbols. They become, in fact, sealed within these metaphors and consciousness cannot get at them except through an understanding of the structure of symbol relations.To Words as metaphors refer to historical processes, but the structure of word relations, their laws of combination which enable that to which they refer to appear. impose a new structure upon historical processes. The use of language to reveal historical processes imposes an unnatural, artificial structure upon historical events. The structure of language becomes the structure of history. Relations between events in history are re-patterned by the relations which govern the manipulation of words. The pattern of events in history is believed to correspond with the pattern of the pre-- sentation of these events inlanguage. "So let it be written so let it be thought done." History and discourse are synchronized, with dis- l3 course the synchronizer. Metaphor becomes reality, symbol becomes concrete. Historical events and processes lose their inherent insepara- bility, their organic inter-relation of parts in mutual influence, and are compressed into mechanical word relations.II Within the cauldron of discourse upon the historical process the bubbling, b0iling liquid events of the past are cooled to near immobility, solidified for trans- port along an assembly-line of words and assembled at the end in a book. The plastic alloy of tradition is poured into linguistic molds where it acquires the form of discourse. The inherent inconsistency between history to the structure of discourse.72 In the overcoming of this inconsistency, however, the consistency of discourse remains. Historical processes cannot be congealed in dis- course upon them and retain their original shape. In their discursive form the original form of historical processes can only be indicated, can only be inferred to exist. The structure of historical processes cannot be exactly reconstructed in word constructions. Words are the summing up, the epilogos of the historical process, the statue at the path's end. But human events are not undertaken solely for the purpose of future discourse upon them. They do not divest themselves of complexity and spontaneity so a future chronicler will have little trouble presenting them. No? The historian must try and perceive historical processes in their own condition, on their own terms, and endeavor to present these terms faithfully. This cannot be done unreflectively. Historical events do not begin at the t0p left corner of page one and end somewhere in the space of the last page. History does not arrange itself in chapter form. l4 History's "raison d'etre" is not to end in a book, in book form, in dis- course. It's book form is merely its transformation into another kind of life. As I have tried to show, diScourse about history is a part of his- torical inquiry itself and thus a part of history. But discourse about history is also a part from history. Discourse about history is metahistory not just in the content of its statements, but in the form of its presentation. The structure of the discourse upon history is itself a metahiStorical statement. It is, in fact, the supreme metahis- toriCal statement for any language organizes what can be said about history by providing a mold for statement formation. Should we be unaware of this limitation, imposed even before historical inquiry commences, we will implicitly assume that language is neutral to history's re-presentation. We will grant it infinite explanatory powers. We will miss how language organized our perceptions and thoughts. We will think of language as merely a box which holds history. By missing the limitations for reconstruction that all languages possess we place ourselves, in Newtonianfashion, within those limitations. Henceforth they cease to be visible and instead become invisable, environmental, something we believe we can't do without--like air. Within this environment of language each thought is an intake of breath, each sentence its expulsion. The rhythm of this cycle, if continued l0ng enough, equips us finally to breath only within that environment. By becoming aware that language limits us in subliminal ways, we have taken the first step out of the language rhythm, We enable ourselves to think and perceive in new rhythms. Language becomes a part of a larger context-~the epilogue.T3 IS IV "A cardinal property of an analog is that the way it is generated is not the way it is used--obviously. The map-maker and the map-user are doing two different things. For the map-maker, the metaphrand is the blank piece of paper on which he Operates with the metaphier of the land he knows and has surveyed. But for the map-user, it is just the other way around. The land is unknown; it is the land that is the metaphrand while the metaphier is the map which he is using, by which he understands the land."14 In previous conceptions of historiography, the map-maker was the historian, the map-user was the reader, the map was discourse, and the land was history. There were two kinds of maps of the historical terrain, the interpretive and the empirical. Any interpretation of history begins with the historian perceiving a relation, or relations, operating within the society which is object of the historical investigation. This perceived relation, expecially if it is a relation historians have not spoken about yet, or spoken about in limited ways, is often thought by the historian to be heuristically important for explaining the nature and development of events. For example, Marx's perception of the forces and relations of production was the cnetral focus of his history. But this relation could be political, intellectual or spiritual also. The specific relation is not important for us. What is important is that this perception of a new relation generates the historian's thought about history and his thought guides the perception of others--the readers. Thus, perception is the foundation and purpose of historiography. l6 Perception is the genesis of the notion of historical process: that human history evolves in recognizable and ultimately predictable patterns. We should be careful however. For we must not lose sight of the truth that what it is the historian maps is really only his perception of historical relations. Perception preceeds thought. The historian, after preceiving a relation in a past-time, bends his mind to the task of translating that perception into cognition for presentation in dis- course. That is, using thought and discourse, the historian creates a map of his perception so that his perception can be used by a reader, a map-user. The map directs the reader's thinking faculties-~since the map is discourse and discourse, as I stated earlier, is directed toward the intellect-~to the historical terrain interpreted (i.e. surveyed) by the historian. The purpose of the map is to induce in the reader a like perception of the historical process.15 In essence, what the historian must do is get others to perceive as he does. To do this he must construct a language environment within which his perception is valid. He must draw others into his perceptual order to perceive as he does. The historian must arrange the proper perceptua-cognitive conditions which, when adopted by his readers, enables them to perceive as he does. This arranging of the proper environ—mental conditions is crucial for the presentation of a new historical interpre- tation. For without this arranging of the perceptuo-cognitive environ- ment, without preparing the reader's intellect for insight, the reader is unable to see the new relation except by‘accident.16 Thus, receiving new knowledge depends upon the seeker after new knowledge being prepared to receive it. The seeker must adopt new ways of thinking and perceiving. He must cast away any perconceptions--which I7 are, in fact, merely old conceptions. But the historian who does not prepare his reader places too great a demand, to weighty a responsibility, on the readers shoulders to grasp the insight. Without constructing in discourse the conditions that give form and characterize a new perception, there can be no "proof" that new knowledge exists. By proof I mean, "the process by which A induces in B a sense of the justification for a con- viction."17 This inducement is obviously difficult, and its difficulty increases the greater the difference between conventional perception and new per- ception. This is so because the reader within a conventional perceptual order already has a map of the same historical terrain which he believes is accurate. But the conventional map is but the result of a previous perception which many have accepted as the most fruitful survey of the topology of history. Accuracy is not up for debate here except insofar as two individuals work within a common perceptual order. To measure accuracy across perceptual orders is very difficult. This problem will be taken up in the discussion on empirical maps. However, popularity, by itself, should never be the yardstiCk by which the best available perceptual orientation, or theoretical paradigm, is determined. Yet how often is popularity made the crucial factor? Popularity does however fill the bill for easy communication since those within conventional perceptions can present ever more refined and detailed maps of the historical process since they perceive the historical process in common. The historian who perceives new relations must present not more and better details of the historical terrain, but a new kind of map of that terrain. This re-mapping obliterates some details in the conventional I8 map and highlights new details. But more importantly all details are presented in a different pattern. Re-mapping generates intense psychic strain within those who fail to realize that "concentrations on coherent verbalizations of certain aspects of human experience may block the "18 We should not forget that today's conven- advance of understanding. tional map was yesterday's new interpretive map. What then of empirical maps? Empirical support for any theory takes its lead and finds its meaning within the theory itself. Theory guides the search for supportive facts. In this sense, theory and its empirical support are a closed structure of knowledge. This is why accuracy of detail between different maps is difficult since although any particular fact may remain intact,--e.g. in l648 the Treaty of Westphalia was signed--in different interpretations of the history of that time that fact acquires different meaning by being part of differ- ent patterns of fact arrangement. Empirical maps are the more and better details in any conventional theoretical statement upon the historical process. Before advancing to a mapping of the new contours of historiography, the process of inducing should be examined since it is the key link for any theory of how learning takes place. As stated above, any particular theoretico-empirical orientation, or historical point of view, is a kind of closed structure of knowledge. How then can this closed structure be pried open so new knowledge, new perceptions, can be presented to those within? How can they be induced to change their orientation? The effectiveness of any new map lies in its ability to lay bare the boundaries of validity of previous maps. The boundaries of validity are I9 the limits of consistency which any structure of knowledge possesses. It is consistency which gives form to any theory of the historical pro- cess. A new map is first of all a map of the theoretical inconsistency of previous maps. That is, it must show that in certain regions of the historical terrain previous maps are untrustworthy guides. And it must show this to those who believe that the previous map is trustworthy, that it is an accurate map of that terrain. However, to one within a particular perceptual and theoretical orientation, any inconsistency in his structure of knowledge cannot easily be proven or justified since his structure is self-contained, I9 self-perpetuating, reflexive, and since, “inductive considerations can show no more than that the axioms are plausible or probably ture."20 An approach to such a project could start by demonstrating the im- possibility of proving certain assumptions within a given structure of knowledge. The value of this approach is that such a demonstration can be done using the principles of reasoning--the way thought about history is organized to yield supportive empirical fact--that are native to that structure of knowledge. For example, Marx's thought about history was organized in such a way as to elevate, via theoretical deduction, the oppressed proletarian class to liberator of the historical process of human alienation. Marx's principles of reasoning made this seem an imperative. But Marx's deduction is only consistent with his assumptions. We need not dwell on or explicate any example to prove this since in a famous l93l paper, "0n Formally Undecideable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems," the logician Kurt Godel proved this approach was universally valid. Godel proved that, l) no system of for- mal reasoning--and a theory of the historical process is an example of 20 formal reasoning--can demonstrate its own consistency by its own prin- ciples of reasoning, and 2) any such system generates propositions that are formally undecideable. That is, the truth of such propositions is undecideable using only the principles of reasoning of the system. Godel's theorum lead inevitably to the general conclusion that all for- mal systems of logic, all theories, are inherently incomplete. 'Thus, the consistency of any theory cannot be demonstrated only assumed.21 Inconsistency can be demonstrated however. Theories cannot be both consistent and complete. All theories place "truth-yielding" boundaries upon their users. However, Godel also showed that some "truths”-ein our case, some perceptions of new relations--which could not be deduced by the prin- ciples of reasoning which characterize a structure of knowledge, can, nvertheless, be expressed in the "language” of that structure of know- ledge. For example, discourse is the language of historians, but words can express more truths than those which can be deduced from the prin- ciples of reasoning that characterize any one historical theory. Like- wise color is the language of painters, but colors can be used in more than just cubist or impressionist ways. Those truths which cannot be deduced but which can nevertheless be expressed and thus perceived, constitute metatheoretical truths about the theory. It is in the expressing, the mapping to use Godel's term, of metatheoretical truths within the structure of knowledge that its boundaries of validity become clear to those within the structure of knowledge. These could not be known in a way which is familiar. The process of inducing begins when perceptions which cannot be known by individuals within a particular perceptual orientation are 21 mapped into their structure of knowing by presenting them in a language with which they are familiar. But this mapping of new perceptions is fraught with difficulties since the familiar language is apt to obscure the new perception. Thus, the presenter must carefully delineate the conditions under which the receptor is to apprehend the language. The receptor must be made aware that the familiar language is a veil between him and a new perception. New knowledge in its first form is essentially analogical for the receptor, but for the presenter the analogy is a precise statement of fact. The process of inducing ends when the recep- tor acknowledges the facticity of the analogy. But what of the new contours of historiography? How do they differ from the old? In the new conception of historiography the map-maker is still the historian, the map-user is still the reader, the map is still discourse, but the land is not history per se, but the relation between the his- torian, the reader, discourse and history. The new land to be mapped is the process of map-making itself and this map of the procews of map- making reveals the limitations of all maps. It subsumes the map-maker, the map-user, the map and the land under their common relation of dis- course.22 The new map presents the fusion of all maps with the land they seek to map, it fuses discourse about history with the reality of history. In mapping, in presenting, the new contours of historiography an understanding of the nature of discourse is essential. For in this idea of new contours it is discourse that provides the link to inducing. Dis- course is both the map and that which is mapped; it is what is presented and the language it is presented in. The new perception to be mapped 22 into other sturctures of knowledge is this perception of discourse as itself the coordinate points for reproduction in a map. Thus, the pur- pose of the new map is not only to show the boundaries of validity of other maps, but also to show its own boundaries of validity, to deter- mine its own limits of consistency: that in the final analysis all maps are self-refernetial, are tautological. Thus, we must be aware that, for example, "the cultures of antiquity do not fit the patterns of the linear sequences of social and economic evolution developed by the German Historical Schools or by Rodbertus and the Marxist."23 And generally, we should realize that the patterns of historical events did not happen in accordance with the patterns of dis- course about them. Discourse is an artificial pattern imposed upon the telling of history. It reveals less about historical patterns than it does about itself. Linear, assembly-line-discourse can only present history in a linear way and "linear concepts of social development are derived from incom- 24 Even plete descriptions of the structural development of events." though we know that historical events do not proceed linearly, yet, for the sake of discoursive consistency, we sacrifice historical completeness. The very act of discoursing breaks down the structure of events into the structure of discourse. All theories of the historical process are doomed to incompleteness by the very intrusion of discourse. This is the funda- mental idea. The intrusion of discourse makes, as Joyce states in Finnegans Wake, “History as her is harped. Too the toone your owldfrow lied of. Tantris, hattrick, tryst and parting, by vowelglide. I feel your thrilljoy mouths overtsepaking, 0 dragmoan, hands understudium. Plunger words what paddle 23 verbed. Mere man's mime: God has jest. The old order changeth and last like the first"25. . . Rite words in rote order. FOOTNOTES Epilogue 1Hayden White, Metahistory, John Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1973, p. 274. 2Jean Piaget, Main Trends jfl_Inter-discjplinary Research, Harper & Row, N.Y., 1973, p. 50. b 3"The meaning of history arises in the uncovering of relationship. That is why the writing of history has less to do with facts a such than with their relations." Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command, Oxford Univ. Press, l948. p. 3. Giedion here refers to the relations between facts in the historical era under investigation. I am using his quote to support the notion that the writing of history itself is a fact which has a relation to the "facts as such." 4 Smith, Pantheon Books Randbm House, N.YT, 9 , p. 25. Michel Foucault, The Archaelogy of Knowledge, trans., A.M. Sheridan- 5From the Greek meta "after" + theoria meaning "the act of viewing," contemplation. 6"Ideally, a language is a storage system for the collective exper- ience of the tribe. Every time a speaker plays back that language, he releases a whole charge of ancient perceptions and memories. This in- volves him in the reality of the whole tribe. Language is a kind of corporate dream . . ." Edmund Carpenter, 93, What A_Blow That Phantom Gave Me, Bantam Books, N.Y., 1973, p. 84. 7"When there is full understanding, any particular item belongs to what is already clear. Thus, it is mere repetition of the known. In that sense, there is tautology. Thus, tautology is the intellectual amusement of the Infinite." Alfred North Whitehead, Modes g:_Thought, Free Press, N.Y., 1968, p.51. 8"Ideas are universals because words always designate universals; and true knowledge is of Ideas chiefly in the sense that every represen- tation as such has a universal relation, not the individual phenomenon, as its content." A.0. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, Harper & Row, N.Y., 1960, p.36. 23E! 24 9Meta--"over" + pherin--”to carry." Metaphor means literally ”to carry over." Metaphors are ingerently representational. 10". . . whereas symbolization is a universal process, the existence of metaphors is limited to those cultures where the definition of the self is that of something discrete and other to everything else. In cultures where the self is not conceived of as entirely disparate from the other, the word which seems to us to be a metaphor is probably only a means of pointing out the participation of one thing in another." Dorothy Lee, Freedom and Culture Prentice-Hall, N.Y., 1959, p. 83. Edmund Carpenter gives a good example of this difference of reality. "Language does more than label: it defines; it tells not only what a thing is, but also its relation to other things. I may say that this pencil is laying on the table making both pencil and table nouns, separate objects, with on indicating their relationship. But a Wintu would say, "The table lumps," or, if there were several things on the table, "The table lumps severally." The Wintu and I experience differ- ent realities, not simply the same reality id different ways." 95, What a_Blow That Phantom Gave Me, p. 20. 1]"In the system of mechanics the elements are entirely uniform, none showing any qualitative difference from the others. Every material par- ticle is by "nature" like the others; it has simply numerical value. But on studying organic phenomena we can never achieve such a reduction to homogeneous number, for here we encounter a specific difference in the elements themselves, a difference of form." Ernst Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, trans., William Woglom and Charles Hendel, YaTe Univ. Press, 1950, p. 189-90. 12"Inconsistency is relative to the abstraction involved. It denies a possible conjunction between meanings. But these meanings have been brought together in the very judgement of inconsistency." Whitehead, Modes of Thought pp. 53, 55. Paiget tells us that judgement is an act of unification. 13"In explaining something in terms of its context one is explaining it in terms of another thing that is more intelligible by virtue of its larger scale, but not necessarily in virtue of being of a different and intrinsically more intelligible nature." Arnold J. Toynbee, A_Study of History, v. 12, Oxford Univ. Press, N.Y., 1964, p. 28. 14Julian Jaynes, The Ori in of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton- -M1fflin, Boston, Mass. , T977, p. 59 15"Prbblems in perception and in thinking . . . have to be investi- gated at different levels . . . but this difference in level is a diff- erence in our knowledge of things and not a difference in the things themselves." Hence, "When a new relation is involved, a highly specific problem must be presented to a mind actively engaged upon the problem which can be solved only by the perception of this particular relation." 25 Abbott Payson Usher, A_History ngMechanical Intentions, Beacon Press, Boston, 1954. pp. 58, 64. Whitehead also remarks on this point. He states that, "understanding has two modes of advance, the gathering of detail within assigned pattern, and the discovery of novel pattern with its emphasis on novel detail." Modes of Thought, pp. 57-8. 16One of the best examples of this idea of preparing the mind to see is the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of the Gospel of Mathew beginning with the third verse. ”And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ”Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age? These two chapters are really an inventory of signs and events that will preceed the Second Coming. Nowhere in these two chap- ters is a specific date given. 17Edmund Whittaker, space and spirit, Henry Regnery Comp., Hinsdale, 111., 1948, p. 39. 18 Whitehad, Modes 9f Though , p. 57. 19"For the finite individual there is penetration to novelty in its own experience; and the selection of detail is subject to the causation from which that individual originates. . . All that we can do is make an abstraction, to presuppose that it is relevant, and push ahead within that presupposition. Whitehead, Modes gf_Thought, pp. 51-2, 56. 20E. Nagel and J. Newman, Godel's Proof, N.U. Univ. Press, 1968, p. 20. 2IHayden White's book Metahistory_is a masterly exposition upon the theme that ultimately great philosophers of history cannot be vanquished by other philosophies since they always remain within their grand over- arching philosophy. 22"In the full concrete connection of things, the characters of the things connected enter into the character of the connectivity that joins them.: Whitehead, Modes gf_Thought, p. 58. 23Abbott Payson Usher, A History gf_Mechanical Inventions, p. 30. 24Ibid. p. 25. 25James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Viking Press, N.Y., 1972, p. 486. PROLOGUE If epilogue is "to speak upon", prologue, unsurprisingly, is ”to speak before." What is essential for us to remember is that the pro- logue, the "logue" and the epilogue are all bound up within the dis- course of the historian. "To speak before" the speech, the logue, is itself speech as was the epilogue. We do not need to retrace those linguistic convolutions here, though they remain relevant. The function of the prologue is to set the conditions, to prepare the way for the speech. In normal presentations this is done when the author introduces (literally " to lead inwards") his topic to his readers. But for this study, prologue means to introduce speech it- self directly, and "the speech" indirectly. That is- our definition is "before speech". What preceeds speech? Much of the succeeding should be read aloud if the visual does not appear to yield any mean- ing. A child hears words before he speaks them--the ear proceeds the eye--as the hearer preceeds the I. This is the prologue of speech. The question, what preceeds speech?, is a legitamate one for his- torians since, "Historical analysis has the task of discovering, be- hind forms of appearance, the inner connection or genetic relation (the laws of transformation) between one system and another within a process of development and change. Its primary purpose is the study of the genesis and evolution of a structure through its con- crete forms of manifestation."1 26 27 Verbal language is unobservable movement. Its origins are in gesture, in bodily action. "Primitive"2 societies name things acc- ording to some attribute those things possess--for example, dogs are "bow-wows." Once named, things are completed, and once completed the thing itself is present when its name is spoken-- the "primitive" says "Speak, that I may see you." "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." In Zorba the Greek, whenever Zorba is unable to verbalize his thoughts, he dances. Speech is pre-operational in gesture.3 Speech is symbolic ges- ture and once speech is operational its replaces and completes gesture as the dominant medium of communication. This is brilliantly shown in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel in the 'disputation by signs" between Thaumaste and Panurge. After Panurge vanquishes Thaumaste, Thaumaste promises to commit the "debate to writing "so that no one may think that these have been fooleries." Speech socially validates gesture. Gesture becomes an art-form. Words are symbolic movements of the body. Speech grows out of gestures and vocalizations. For speech implies the organization of sound--an organization which refers to something. The organization of gesture supplied the structural principles for the organization of sounds. But the structure of gesture remains with us, as when we point in response to a question of direction. Speech is the archi- tecture of sound. 28 Speech surrounds and completes gesture by substituting organized sound for bodily movement. Speech is the substitution of the tongue for the rest of the body since the word "body" infers everything we can do with the body. Gesture is an aid to speech. Communication in speech is an aid to thought. Gesture is the content of speech, except for pre-verbal children for whom speech is the content of ges- ture. This principle of the primacy fo gesture in speech remains even for the highly verbal who speak of productive communication as "being in touch" with another. Speech is the minds dance. It is the gesturing of the intellect. When we listen to speech, or read, we follow "its lead.“ We learn to speak not word for word but through rhythm and meter--again the close (class?) conjunction with dance and structured bodily movement. Words come after rhythm provides the structure for words to be "thrown to- together." Rhythm provides the background for word formation and this is the reason why an apprehension of new truth, before it is proved “right," simply "sounds right" or "rings's true." The Jews of Christ's time said he spoke "with authority," not as an authority. Christ entered into and became the mouthpiece of a message He did not originate. His words "in-voked" and "pre-voked" the "volk." Thus, to convince is to induce others to mentally "dance to our tune." Discourse upon history is the music, gesture the beat, facts the notes to arrange in a melody. More than 200 years ago David Hume proved there was no principle of causality in mere sequencing. This goes for words, sentences, paragraphs and sequels also. 29 The idea of causality implies a necessary relation to an effect. An effect can be described--which is the same thing as defined--as "a concrete form of manifestation" of a cause. (Manifestation is lit- erally what follows "a striking with the hand). That is, given cer- tain conditions, an effect is what follows striking, or manipulating, those conditions. Speech as the gesturing of the intellect is the "handmade“ of history. Speech, language, makes history. It assembles historical events in sequences according to a grammatical structure. But this is not causality, it it hypotesis. The hypothesis that his- tory can be understood in this fashion. Speech makes history fashion- able: our contemporary (literally "together in time")4. But history, the past, does not move itself. The past is motion- less when left to itself. But the hand of the mind can strike it. Language, like ole man river, jsut keeps roiling along. Now, if there is no causality in mere sequencing, is causality a dead issue? Of course not. Sequencing is the result of causality. Causality is only a presumption used to arrange things to creat eff- ects. If causality is merely an assumption, then there can be no prov- able causal immuteability, ("not silentable"). Causality is there- fore mutable, and there are many causes operating within any situa- tion each one manifested in a particular patterned structure. In writing of history we can sequence our information either thematically ("what is laid down), chronologically (by time--chronology etymologi- cally derives from the Greek god Kronos whose major claim to fame lay in his devouring all the other Greek gods except Zeus--perhaps a common-territory on the fate of gods invented by men) analytically ("to loosen throughout, dissolve"), or arbitrarily (by judgement). 30 It seems the best of our choices is the last since a judgement is an act of unity. Judgement as unity is a "summing up" of the pre- ceeding proceedings. Besides, themes are invented by historians, time is simply a measure of rhythm, and analysis dissolves the organ- ic bond of human events. Arbitration is the medium of history. With no principle of causality in mere sequencing why and how are things sequence? Things are sequenced to indicate something which is initally not among the things sequenced. --This is a seque- nce of words which indicates that the sequencing of words constructs meanings--. The meaning, or effects, indicated and constructed by the sequen- cing of words and other things--any good cookbook will give numerous examples--are called con-sequences. But sequencing itself as an act- tivity if meaningful since, should I write "brick light idiot" the fact that these three words are constructed in ordinal fashion, is structurally, though not necessarily contextually, meaningful. Any sequencing of historical events is a statement about history and about the historian. The most important consequence of sequencing is that things can be sequenced. Why and how a historian sequences his events tells his-story. Thus, while sequencing does not illuminate any principle of causality, it nevertheless has consequences. "As we begin so we go, as we learn so we do." "If all A's are B's and X is an A, then X is an 8. Whatever X and A and B may be this sentence's true; it is true by virtue of its 5 structure." Just as, I might add, "brick light idiot is true by virtue of its structure. 3'1 Truth refers simply to a constructed meaning. One of the con- sequences of Lord Russell's statement is that should we substitute "brick light idiot" for A, B and X, the result is the structurally meaningful but contextually meaningless sentence, "If all bricks are lights and idiot is a brick, then idiot is a light." But this sentence is contextually true "if" bricks lights and idiots are the same thing. It is always structurally true, and it is contextually true whenever we decide that one thing is something else. "Oh, that man's reach should exceed his grasp else what's a metaphor." A, B and X are infinitives and refer to relations not to spec- ific elements. If they are elements then A could not be 8 anymore than flower is a factory--though both can be plants. Their subsump- tion in the one word plant illustrates the principle that the context defines the meaning, relations define the object. The implications of such an awareness, that is, of the nature of structure to be true even when it "speaks" falsely, are grave for those who “grievely contest the morning of meaning in other Scholar's historeening." Historians's should be, the first to see their calling of grave robbery, Is levity-wright? "The past is in-sight!" But only in fictional fact-tional graven imaginals In makeing fact-tional fictional graven imaginals historians are re- creating by recreating through wreck-creation. As Whitehead stated, "The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur." '32 Speech wrecked-creation and wreathed—created it again in words. At best, contesting historians write fact-tional fictions for their fictional factions. There are no factions in a structure only fictions, 6 Facts are the Dada. Fiction the depiction. only relations. It is in consequence of an identity of structure that one thing can be translated into another. Carl Jung postulated that the rea- 7 the messages of the unconscious son the conscious mind can de-cipher was a structural symmetry between them. For the same reason, many psychologists tell us, human beings are able to communicate with each other. And it is identity of structure that allows, as Bertrand Russell says,"§poken and written sentences to be translated into each "8 2 is the structural identity of matter and other. Lastly, E=mc energy. But what of history and speech? Russell again provides and excellent example, "When two complexes have the same structure, every statement about the one, in so far as it depends only on structure, has a corresponding statement about the other, true if the first was true, and false if the first was false. Hence arises the possibility of a dictionary, by means of which state- ments about the one complex ean be translated into statements about the one complex can be translated into statements about the other. Or instead of a dictionary, we may continue to use the same words, but attach different meanings to them according to the complex to which they are referred. This sort thing happens in interpreting a sacred text or the laws of physics. The "days" in the Biblical account of the Creation are taken to mean "ages" and in this way Genesis is re- conciled with geology."9 33 But this reconciliation is contextualloy true only if geology is true. If geology is false--as Dr. Velikovsky says--then reconciling Genesis with geology makes Genesis false--this would be error upon error, lore upon ore. To err is humus, to lore-give is fine. However, we should also consider not just the reconciliation, but also the reconciliator, the historian, who is the one who brings the reconciliation "about-face!" To do this he simply defines Genesis in terms of geology to see if Genesis will fit. This is the same pro- cedure a scientist uses to core-relate the physical whorld with the mathemetrical weld. If this fit is sufficeiently inductive, physics is the result. Thus, one entity, physics, is constructed out of the "fit" between nature and mathematics, and science has a new field-day. History is constructed in the fit between the past event and the present language.. It is the historian who accomplices the reconcilia- tion of the inherent structural differences between past events and the present verbi-age inployed to indescribe them. It is this fit, arr- anged in the historians mind, between events and words, that makes the historian the loreyore, the arbitraitor, of the past. [But, Marx mein words, any du bist-loreian who believes this wile be Karled upon the corporate to argue his cast before die bard of der rectors of hysteria. History de jure, is conjured. After all is dead and sung, historical events are not structured seriously. To think so is to write listory. History events, as are all human events, are made up of clusters of impressions and a mirror- id cross-currents of thought and feeling, accidents and purposes. How 34 can anyone reelistitally expect to present any event--when does and event begin? end? all-for omega--in words? For the structure of word relations is different irresolvably so--then that of human events. But we tend to forget this because we tied up with and tied down by the printed word. It takes the genius in Rabelais, in Cervantes, in Joyce or in Sterne to point out the limitations in speeches and books by making meaning seemily arbitrary. In other words, it taxes the genie-in-us in Babble-aye?, in Servanties, en-Joyous oar-in-Sterne, too butt out thee incantations in fleeces and rooks buy mocking- making seaming orbit-trailereening. The great endsight of these men was, in every case, the idea that workds and their meanings are arbtrary. It was they who pointed out that conventions are only for a lot of us. It is the single indi- vidual who, taking the reality of the past and the realty of the word, creates his story. Finnegans Wake-~L'homo ludens liberates livres from leur laminat— ed, Lamdanated, Librated lateral-is-literal loquacity, as Freudian slips past the mental mantle of words. In a whirled of seriousness. Rabelais, Servantes, Sterne and Joyce created fdur manuals fore- handling psyschic re-vive-all. Man your oars! Pan your ores! If you be men of sleuth. As Freud discovered, language masks our personal and collective history. This insight enabled him to spot unresolved emotional- psychic "ten-shun!" in linquistic slips. Meaning is clothed in words. but each word is bound together with all other words in a seemless 35 web of relations.10 Also, each meaning is bound up with all other meanings. As a contemporary Freudian, Jacques Lacan, says, fno meaning is sustained by anything other than reference to another meaning."n Lagan's, "The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious", is a full- scale elucidation upon this theme. The infinite number of meanings that words hold can be revealed simply by changing the sound, the rhythm, or the spelling of words. That's what makes Joyce et al so punny to read. It is the same with An_Historian's Approach toReligion-ing12 history and speech in his own mind. Alphabetizing is simply a convenient method of organizing our words. We could as easily arrange them in any other sequence of first letters say O F M V L 0 Z O R ETC. The principle that allows us to corridor the letters of our alphabet in any sequence-—- no causality in sequencing-— and still account for all our words is a principle of all structures. In structural analysis we can begin with any element and from there Godel any other element- et's alimentary my dire whetstonel In a structural analysis of the alphabet, we could _ move from A to 8 just as easily as from A to Z, or Q to D, Q.E.D. In structure, the relations that order elements are more important than the elements. The relations form a whole, a class, which imprints its form upon each element's form. Thus, in acknowledging the reconfiliation of history and speech in the mind of the historian, we acknowledge his right to start where he wants, and arrange as he pleases. The elements of his objet d'histoire are his to arrange. There is no intrinsic barrier to the structuring of thought other than that we choose to impose on ourselves. History is arbitrary, it proceeds by judgement, right or wrong. 36 One may cry that any arbitrary presentation of history dis- figures historiography and history; that the real nature of histori- cal inquiry is to unlock the secrets of history as they occured. As if there were some inherent structural homology between history and what we Can say about it. Each historian re-solves the problem of the structural difference btween history and its telling by de- fining away inheirant structural differences; by symbolizing ("to throw together") history and his discourse in his mind. History, in its law-tonamy, is disfigured in its tailing. We can only retail it again in ways which we invent. This study is one way to arrange historical events and pro- cesses in patterns. which were not their own. Historical events will appear only as they occured. To me. This study is auto-tauto-log- ical as all history becomes when one speaks about it. This is reely quite norm-mal. "When, misled by a false philosophy of objectivity conceived as mere submission to the given as such, the sociologist negates him- self as a sociologist by refusing consciously to build his own dis- tance from reality and the conditions for an adaquate knowledge of it, he condemms himself to ascertain preconstructed facts which are imposed on him despite himself because he is not provided with the means of knowing the rules of their construction." The same is true, I assert, for historians. FOOTNOTES Prologue 1 Henry Veltmeyer, "Towards an Assessment of the Structuralist Interrogation of Marx: Claude Levi-Strauss and Louis Althusser". Science and Society, vol. 38 #4, p. 420 This notion of the setting of conditions to introduce a top- ic is never really accomplished. For there arises the question, implicitly adressed in the epilogue, of what are the conditions needed to introduce the conditions. That this Can be a life long process is born out by this statement by Arnold Toynbee, "that the volumes l-lO....of A_Stud of Histor .... hinge on two attempts to find an intelligible field 5? stu y as a framework for a narrower field that I had found unintelligible when taken by itself without looking beyond its limits." Reconsiderations, vol. 12 of A_Stud gfi_History, Oxford Univ. Press, Galaxy Beaks, N.Y., 1964, p. . 2 Primitive here is not a pejorative term, simply a term used to indicate a relation with positions of advancement. In this con- text children are primitive adults. This, in fact, was the notion of children until the appearance of industrial society. See Philippe Aries, Centuries gf_Childhood. 3 For expample, Piaget states in relation to the the unfolding of mathematical knowledge in children, "Between the elementary levels where cognitive conduct proceeeds by trial-and-error or immediate perceptive intuitions and those levels where, towards 7-8 or 12-15 years, alegebraic structures recognizable by the strict co-ordination of 'operations are constituted, one finds all the intermediary stages in the form of pre-operational respresentations involving sim- ple regulations but tending toward a form of operaion." Main Trends jg_Interdisiplinary Research, Harper & Row, N. Y., 1973, p.24 4 "Together in time", however, implicitly means "together with time" since when a thing is part of another thing it is ”with-in" that larger thing. It is both apart, and a part. 5 Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge, Simon & Shuster, N.Y., 1948. p. 253 37 38 6 Hayden White remarks, "history remains in the state of con- ceptual anarchy in which the natural sciences existed during the sixteenth century, when there were as many different conceptions of the scientific enterprise as there were metaphysical position". Metahistory, p. 13 7 Cipher was the word used in late Middle Ages for zero. Zero. of course, meant "nothing". But in mathematical structure it acquir- ed positional meaning. It was structurally true though it had no positive elemental value. To de-cipher means, then, to give such a positive value to what is by comparison "nothing". 8 Russell, Op. Cit. p. 255 9 Ibid. p. 255-255 10 "Semantically the functioning of language is analogous: out of a presumed spectrum of all possible meanings, each language car- ves out certain notions which are attached to particular signifiers. On the level of meanings each sign is distinguishable from its near synonyms on the basis of some divergence or opposition of sense. Strickly speaking, there are no synonyms, a proposition poets and translators have affirmed for a long time.... Any individual lan- guage sound, word, or grammatical form is meaningless except in op- position to the alternative possibilities available in the language. In this way essences give way to relations, the individual entity to networks." John G. Blair, "Structuralism, American Studies, and the Humanities, American Quarterly, V. XXX #3, 1978, p. 266 ‘1 Jacques Lacan, "The Insistence of the Letter in the Uncon- scious". The Structuralists, ed. Richard & Fernande DeGeorge, Anchor Books, Doubleday & Co., N.Y., 1972, p. 287-323 12 This is a play on Toynbee's title in two ways. Religion means, as a word, "to bind together", and these words can be sub- stituted in the sentence for the one word religion. Also, bind together, illustrates our purposes here since the book could be titled An Historian's ApprOach tg_Binding Together and not lose any contextuaT meaning. It was Toynbee himself that bound A_Study of History together. As one critic said, "The book is his education." A Study of History is only secondarily a study of history. Primarily it is a study of Toynbee himself. THEORETICO - HISTORICO - PSYCHEO STRUCTURES If Perceptive organs vary, Objects of Perception seem to vary, If Perceptive organs close, their Objects seem to close also. This oft-quoted fragment from William Blake's epic, Jerusalem, is a useful introduction to the process of structure formation. If we sub- stitute "structure" for "objects of perception" in the first line and "objects" in the second, we have the relationship between the structure and the constructer that is the foundation of arbitrary historiography. It is the psyche, the ”perceptive organs" 0f the historian, which con- structs historical structures in a theory. Out of his observations and insights the historian constructs a theoretical model, a social struc- ture, that can describe the social relations of the society under obser- vation. "The term 'social structure' has nothing to do with empirical reality but with models which are built up after it . . . social rela- tions consist of the raw materials out of which the models making up the social structure are built, while social structure can, by no means, be reduced to the ensemble of the social relations to be described in a given society."1 No structural model of social relations can isomorphically corre- spond to those relations since the historian's mind and the social rela- tions are two distinct realities. The social structure mediates the two. 39 40 A "social structure" is constructed to fit together the historian's mind with observed social relations, as physics is constructed to fit together the natural with the mathematical world, and as history is constructed to fit together past events with current language. Thus, we can say that it is in the "social structure" that social relations can be seen -- "the- orized." "The theoretical process consists in building symbolic representa- tions whose structure is such that their necessary consequences in the sphere of thought are symbols of the consequences in the realm of things of the objects represented . . . . It is in their totality, or, more exactly, in their mutual relations that such concepts represent their objects."2 In this sense, theory works not because fact A has a correlary con- cept A and fact B a correlary concept 8, but because the relational structure of concepts A and 8 allows the theorist to deduce concept C as a consequence of that structure of concepts, and propose concept C as the symbol of factual consequence C. Should the similarity between fact C and concept C exhibit "fit," then the theory has explanatory and predic- tive value.3 But theories do not have to have this conceptual-factual affinity (which is, in reality, but a loose kind of isomorphic correspondence) to be useful, or even to be considered valid. When theory attempts to gen- erate knowledge, to illuminate the unknown -- this is the making of a new map -- it constructs history. In this context, theory makes history; it does not seek to explain it in the sense of matching up conceptual rela- tions with perceived social relations. A theory about what is generally unperceived in history immediately imposes a form, constructs a shape, 41 where one had either not been before, or had only been vaguely appre- hended. Should it turn out that this initial shape does not correspond to what is later thought to be the actual shape of the social relations is nearly irrelevant to the "fact" that the shape was constructed at all. It is for this reason that historians must acknowledge the greatness of a Marx or a Toynbee who, though wrong about so many facts, gave histo- rians a new imaginary sense of human history.4 A new imaginary sense primarily increases our understanding of human societies, both past and present,5 not our factual knowledge of them. As I tried to show in the epilogue, facts are essentially bound up in the- oretical structures. They don't exist in isolation form theory. They are not neutral "things" which maintain some innate non-theoretical orig- inality no matter what theory they are bound up within. To think of facts as neutral is to believe in some great warehouse of facts which it is the business of the human mind to attempt to inventory: as if facts were like grains of sand. Facts acquire a different factious nature with every theory that employs them. Facts are like stars in the nightsky which acquire forms when ar- ranged in constellations. Stars are there to be sure. We can count those we see no doubt. But as mere tiny lights they evoke no meaning -- wonder, yesl,meaning, no! But "Orion" evokes meaning. Furthermore, we could not, without a theory of the unknown, improve the penetrative power of the unaided eye through telescopes and look beyond the restrictions of the night-dome to perceive the stars beyond. Like constellations, theories are constructions of the human mind. And once stars or facts are constellated that is how we perceive them from then on.6 42 "The psyche cannot leap beyond itself .... Thesis is followed by antithesis, and between the two is generated a third factor, a lysis which was not perceptible before. In this the psyche once again merely demonstrates its antithetical nature and at no point has really gotten outside itself. In my effort to depict the limitations of the psyche I do not mean to imply that only the psyche exists. It is merely that, so far as perception and cognition are concerned, we cannot see beyond the psyche."7 As Carl Jung points out, theories are imaginary. They are fictions, conceptual not empirical structures, and whose relation with empirical reality, with social relations, is constructed by the theorist. In our case, by the historian in his psyche -- which he cannot see beyond. In saying that the relation of theory to fact, of structural model to social relations, is constructed by the historian I am implying that in structuralist terms all variables are dependent and independent of any given dependency, and it is necessary to speak of variables in these two senses. The relation of theory to fact and model to history is one of Ge- stalt figure-ground. In such a relation each figure is ground for a smaller figure, and each ground is figure within a larger ground. Blakes fragment is figure-ground with "objects of perception" as the figure, and "perceptive organs" as ground. But both "perceptive organs" and "objects of perception“ are figures within the ground of the reader's mind. In historiography the final ground, since it is the least complete and understood, is the historian's mental structure. That is why it is the theorist, the historian, who constructs history in the psyche he can- not see beyond. Whatever is incomplete is not observable. Whatever is 43 understood to be incomplete is, in reality, completable. Theory and fact, social structure and social relations, are both incomplete in them- selves. They are completed in the incompleteness of the historian's psyche. When the structure of a ground changes, or better, is changed, all figures within that ground undergo change. The effects of a change in the ground are more general than specific, more environmental than indi- vidual. When the historian changes his structure of perception histor- ical processes change with it. New theories, new maps, are never mere links on a chain of reasoning, but are new conjunctures of conditions. New theories remake the totality of conditions in which a problem or event is located. The ideas of figure-ground relations means simply that the figure is what is consciously noted, the ground is everything else including what was previously consciously noted. Ignorance is the ground of know- ledge as silence is the ground of sound. But sound is the ground of vo- calization, and vocalization is the ground of verbalization. It can be said that all knowledge is figure against the ground of ignorance since we are always ignorant of more than we can ack-knowledge. Figure-ground is also a useful method for investigating and explain- ing historical events. For example, to "explain" the arrival and spread of the Black Death in Europe during the mid-14th century (the figure), could be done within a larger framework (the ground) of rats, fleas, pop- ulation, climate, ships and the Middle East. The Black Death seems to have been brought to Europe by fleas inhabiting the fur of certain rats who were aboard ships which sailed for middle eastern ports. It spread 44 due to the bad hygenic habits of the European urban population; the cold, damp climate which decreased the disease resistance of people, especially when coupled with minimal nutrition, limited fuel for heating and cooking, and too few woolen garments all of which were the result of overpopula- tion; the cold climate again since it was a good environment for the pneumatic plague bacillus which was the real killer, though the Bubonic Plague took the rap. Now, if we wanted to "explain" the general increase in the standard of living among Europe's population in the latter half of the 14th cen- tury (the figure), one part, perhaps the central part, of our ground would be the Black Death itself since it was the plague which was the principle cause of the decline in population. Low population decreased the necessity of farming marginally productive land thus increasing har- vest yields for many. Increased harvest yields meant better nutrition. Also, less peOple meant more woolen garments per capita and more wood per family for heating and cooking. This obviously simplistic analysis of these "events" -- simplistic because, for one, I did not answer the question, "From where did the Black Death originate? The Middle East itself? Did it arrive in the Middle East from some other part of the globe?”-- but it does serve to highlight the figure-ground relation in historical exposition. The question that occurs with figure-ground procedure is, "Where can one begin to discuss incidents of history if even the grandest theory the ground for the discussion, is always but a figure within a larger ground of the structure of the psyche? Ultimately, are all theoretico- historico explanations really psychological projections since the final ground, that which we cannot see beyond, is the historian's psyche?" Yes! 45 And no! Explanation is always figure-ground. This is arbitrary his- tory. Beginning is always an act of judgement which requires that the theoretical conditions within which any incident is to be discussed must be laid down at the outset. It is within these conditions that the inci- dent acquires meaning. Just as it was within cultural arranging and nam- ing of some stars that "Orion" acquired and later evoked meaning. "Ori- on" evoked not just the image of the hunter (the figure), but also the cultural conditions within which the stars acquired a pattern and a name (the ground). But the cultural conditions are evoked as a figure within our contemporary ground. A name evokes an entire culture. The theoretical conditions from which an explanation can be con- structed must be deposited into history by the historian. Explanation cannot begin from the actual conditions of history since they were never static, nor are they available to use except in mediated form. Theories are explanatory models; they did not exist in history. Theories con- struct explanations of history. . Since the actual conditions of history were/are never static, then neither were/are any of the "events" of history. For example, as we shall see in more detail later, the conception of the nature of numbers, an "event," did not remain as the Greeks conceived it. The conception of number changed as numbers were carried through Arab and European lands and history. The Arabs and Europeans changed number conceptions and con- structed new number relations by developing new logical foundations for numbers, and by broadening the application of numbers. Each change can be considered as the construction of a new figure from the previous fig- ure, thus pushing the previous figure into the ground. Or, conversely, each change can be considered as a further penetration into the logical 46 ground of number, thus making the old ground into a new figure. But this is only part of the story. For the conception of number inherited from the Greeks helped change Arab society commercially and scientifically. In like manner, the Greco-Arabic number system helped radically alter'the structure of social relations in post-twelfth century Europe. So, as the internal relations of number were changed by the socie- ties through which they passed, they, at exactly the same time were changing the internal social relations of those societies. Numbertjanged society, society changed number. Number, like language, changes societies by opening up to the human mind all sorbsof new possibilities for conceptual operations and con- structions, by presenting new ways for arranging human life.8 In short, by providing new theoretical tools with which human beings construct his- tory and life. Structural models, if they are to be coherent, must posit theoreti- cal conditions within history to arrest the flux of life, and from which the historian constructs fevents.9 So, "although historical exposition has as its priority genetic analysis, this analysis presupposes determi- nate knowledge of structure as a necessary condition of historical study. Structural analysis . . . (as a synchronic relation of part) . . . is thus converted into a necessary condition and premise of historical expo- sition." . . . And this exposition . . . "can adopt a historical form after being guided -- at the level of investigation -- by theoretical analysis."9 Genetic analysis of history only begins after a theoretical model has been constructed and deposited within history, and proceeds after the 47 conceptual instruments needed for analysis have been forged. Theory is not just the structurhwjof history into thought, which would be ex post. facto history. Theory is the construction of a living body of conceptual relations upon which historians carry out logical experiments to discover structures in history. Discovery here is constructive, not replicative. In lieu of the inability of the historian to perform experiments upon his- tory directly, theory substitutes for history in the historian's mental laboratory. But, what is a structure? "A structure is a systematic whole of self-regulating transformations."10 This, "implies first of all laws of totality distinct from those of its elements, which even permit complete disregard of those elements; secondly, its properties as a whole are laws of transformation as contrasted with any formal laws; thirdly, every structure implies an autoréglage in the double sense that its composi- tions do not go outside its own frontiers and that they make no appeal to anything outside such frontiers. However, this does not prevent the structure from being able to divest itself into sub-structures which in- herit its characteristics but at the same time show their own individual characteristics. In its final state a structure constitutes a closed ‘system, while at the same time it is able in its turn to integrate itself into new and wider structures, as a sub-structure."H If we overlook the unfortunate terminology of a structure "being able to divide itself into sub-structures" -- the historian divides, structures are mental inventions which are not independent of their inventor -- the relation between theory and fact, social structure and social relations is made apparent. 48 A theory of history, beginning from the depositing of theoretical conditions into history, is made up of laws of totality -- these consti- tute the "method" for arranging concepts into explanatory patterns -- which are distinct from the elements, the social relations, which they order and describe. The properties of a theory as a whole are "laws of transformation" that allow for the generation of new concepts from the structure of concepts. That is, laws of transformation are different than the iconic stasis of formal laws. Lastly, these transformation laws as autoréglage only generate specific kinds of new concepts; con- cepts which preserve the structure of concepts because they never incor- porate concepts from outside the structure of concepts.12 Structures can endlessly generate new elements but are powerless to generate new relations. For example, the structure of arithmetic can endlessly generate new numbers merely by adding 1 to the most recently generated number. This is a law of transformation. But that same structure cannot generate a new relation such that adding 1 to the most recently generated number results in a number that was previously gener- ated, without destroying the arithmetical relation of numbers. Once laws of totality have been formed the structure is closed. The addition of the historian adds openness to the process. Since the historian constructed the theory he can dismantle it and construct another should he find the old one no longer useful. Theory should never be a cross upon which to be crucified for the sake of theoretical immuta- bility. As pointed out in the epilogue, no theory is complete. However, there are two ideas in Piaget's definition of cardinal importance for historical theory, and for a theory of social change. Those ideas are ”frontiers" and "sub-structure-structure integration." 49 As Jung pointed out, between thesis and antithesis "is generated a third factor, a lysis." This is the point. New structures do not emerge out of old ones. New structures replace old ones. New structures, Jung's lysis, are constructed in the abrasive "space" of frontier inter- face. Structural change in social relations, in branches of knowledge, or in historians theorizing about the past, always assumes the presence of at least two structures in interface. Between societies there are those who live on the frontiers of two worlds. They construct the lysis, the marginal society, Within societies there are those who are consid- ered marginal individuals. The frontiers within a society constitute the margins of the sub-structures of that society. It is on the frontier that new societies, or new sub-structures within societies, are construc- ted. Between societies there is mutual introduction of socia1.reality along with concomitant introduction of problems. Societies in close proximity should be analyzed together, as a unit, which share problems, solutions and realities. fRelated (i.e. proximate) social systems can- not be considered as environmental constants to one another but as changing variables in a united framework."13 Proximate societies —- "proximity" is not necessarily spacial. The United States and Japan are commercially proximate today; the past and the present are proximate today; the past and the present are in prox- imity in the epilogue of this work. Proximity occurs in thought as in "14 In stimu- space -- are in a continual state of "stimulus diffusion. lus diffusion a goal or objective is set within a society by something previously existing in another environment; originality is limited to achieving the mechanisms by which this goal could be attained. "What is 50 really involved in every true example of stimulus diffusion is the birth of a pattern new to the culture in which it develops, though not com- pletely new in human culture."15 Elements introduced from one society to another are symbols of the introducing society.16 as words are the symbols of universal relations. As symbols, these elements "carry over" the entire society, as language carries in its structure the entire history of a people,17 and as "Ori- on" carries the society of ancient Greece. Structural theory must indicate such a constructivist relationship between societies and other structures. For here, where structural in- terface occurs, is where all innovation originates. In the "space" be- tween structures -- even the space can be said to be generated and con- structed18 -- structures, between fact and theory, language and history, historian and language, past and present, number and society, new struc- tures are continuously constructed. Relations are changed within a society through the introduction of a foreign element. As previously discussed, though structures can gen- erate an infinite number of elements, relations can only be changed from without. Changed relations are constructed by individual human beings acting in response to general agitation. New theory is constructed from the introduction of one foreign fact or concept into an existing struc— ture of conceptual relations. As Toynbee says, "An empirical generaliza- tion is at once overthrown by a contradictory instance. One is enough. One instance will disprove a proposition. On the other hand, no finite number of instances will prove it."19 51 Now if a generalization cannot be proven by a finite number of in- stances, then that one contradictory instance is enough to construct in- to, within theoretical limits, an entirely new generalization. But that contradictory instance itself cannot be proven by any finite number of instances leagued in its support. This is why theory constructs history. Since no theory can be a complete explanation of history, every theory weaves together fact with non-fact; non-fact being fact within another theory. Theories are conceptual generalizations which no finite number of concepts can prove. One contradicotry concept overthrows a theory. But that contradictory concept is not an errant "fact" since facts do not exist independently of a theory, but the port of entry into another theoretical universe. One contradictory instance generates the search for support. Theory constructs historical consciousness. The frontier interface between the historian and the society he studies, between social relations and the social structure, between discourse and history, between one historian and another, between the- ories, and between the consciousness which operated in the past and the contemporary consciousness of that past consciousness, all generate lyses in their abrasion, and all indicate, though they cannot strictly corre- spond to, the sub-structural interface that continually occurs within a society, and the structural interface between societies. Whenever there is abrasion there is generation and construction. The result is integra- tion. Integration happens whenever things are brought "into touch" with each other. This ”makes them whole." They become integers, possessing 52 integrity. Pythagoras believed that numbers were tactile, and McLuhan has noted that, "number is an extension and separation of our most inti- mate and interrelating activity, our sense of touch."20 Integration is a "bonding.together," a symbolizing of two distinct entities in a third entity. It occurs at the frontiers. Integration bestows new life upon entities. Integration allows people to be "in touch.V Analysis is dis-integration of a structure. In structuralist terminology, that structure which is "bound up" in a larger structure is called a weaker structure. That which does the "binding together" of weaker structures (the religia) is designated the stronger structure. Stronger structures are said to complete weaker structures by providing more general laws of operation and interrelation than weaker structures exhibit. Weaker structures under the despotism -- "from the Greek dispotein: for inclusive vision from above: it is the 2] -- of a stronger structure act Greek for knowing something inside out" in accordance with the principles of organization that characterize the stronger.structure. In historiographical terms it means that facts act in accordance with the "principles of reasoning" that characterize a knowledge structure, a theory. The process of integration always assumes at least two entities and a "space" between them which must be bridged, metaphor—ed, if the entities are to be integrated. The entities and the space constitute a gestalt of figure-ground interplay. The theorist job is to make us aware of the space -- he must de-cipher it -- as valid to the entire structural gestalt. Acknowledgement of the integrity of space in conjunction with the entities imposes form and positional value upon the space. That is, space is necessary to the integrity of the entities. 53 Awareness of the integrity of the entire gestalt is the first step in new theory construction. Theories, primarily, are not meant to in- crease our factual knowledge but to increase our awareness of ignorance. Knowledge and ignorance are also a gestalt in conjunctive integrity. Every gain in knowledge is accompanied by a gain in ignorance. Every new theory increases our awareness of what we are ignorant of. In like manner, awareness of the integrity of the conjunction of structures and the space imposes a form upon space. It makes a previous ground (the space) into a conscious figure within a larger ground. It makes ignor- ance conscious. Consciousness of ignorance is knowledge, is integration. Entities are brought into touch in the medium of the very space that separates them. Stronger structures both cleave apart and cleave together weaker structures. Integration always co-exists with disintegration. Aware- ness that space has a form implies that a new space is formed. Stronger structures impose a new system of relations upon weaker structures thus "binding together" all weaker structures in a system which is not their own. This binding together by the external force makes manifest the uniqueness of all weaker structures, not only from each other, but also from the stronger structure. Within an imposed system of relations, a standardization of interaction, the standardizer is not one of the set of more elementary sub-structures undergoing stan- dardization. This is exemplified in the discussion of the historical process with discourse that appears in the epilogue. The standardizer 22 But also, the relations is thus distinct from what it standardizers. of interchange that previously existed so that the weaker structures now differ from each other in new ways. This is integration. 54 This same principle occurs in societies undergoing structural over- haul. The insecurity and anxiety that characterize societies in tran- sition is due in large measure to the construction of new differences between Sub-sets of the population. Old differences are replaced by new differences as the society begins to act in new ways -- recall the dis- cussion of number in conjunction with Greece, Arabia and Europe. In social relational terms the sub-sets of the population are undergoing an identity crisis. In hiStoriography the structure imposing a new order upon weaker structures is the historian's psyche. He organizes and constructs "events" in patterns which are not history's. The historian deciphers the space of ignorance between the past and the present by theorizing. He constructs history. History is never strictly reconstructed, it is renude and clothed in theory. It is the historian who integrates the events of history within his integrity. FOOTNOTES Theoretico - Historico - Psycheo Structures 1Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthrgpology, trans. Clare Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf, Doubleday and Co. N.Y., 1967, p. 271. 2Pierre Bourdieu, "Structuralism and Theory of Sociological Know- ledge," Social Research, vol. 35, #4, p. 688. Bourdieu continues (p. 689), "Ifie structure of symbols symbolizes the structure of relations established by experience in such a way that that the relation between theory and facts, between reason and experience, is still a structural homology . . . In other words, theory as a system of signs organized to represent, through their own relations, the relations among the objects is a translation or, better, a Symbol linked to what is symbolizes by a law of analogy." See the Prologue of this work for a discussion of translation as structural identity and some possible problems with tran- slation. 3"It is not necessary to verify each single proposition but only the complete system of propositions." Ibid. p. 688. Bourdieu states later, "The model, formalized or not, is the substitute for experimen- tation, which is almost always impossible, and provides the means to compare with reality the consequences drawn through such a construction, in a way that is complete just because it is fictitious. As against the mimetic models that reproduce only the phenomenal properties of the object, instead of restoring its principles of functioning, the analo- gical or structural models, disregarding appearances through abstraction and methodic comparison, establish an intelligible relation among con- structed relations and can be transposed to orders of reality pheno- menally very different, suggesting by analogy new analogies and giving rise to new constructions of objects." p. 699. 4Robert Nozick, in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia, comments upon this idea of theories which may be wrong but which, because of their powerful imagery and speculative daring, nevertheless, create an "explanation“ of what was heretofore unknown or only vaguely apprehended. He states. "A fundamental potential explanation (an explanation that would explain the whole realm under consideration were it an actual ex- planation) carries important explanatory illumination even if it is not the correct explanation. To see how, in principle, a whole realm could fundamentally be explained greatly increases our understanding of the realm." Nozick uses state-of-nature theories in political philosophy as an example. "State-of-nature explanations of the political realm are 55 56 fundamental potential explanations of this realm and pack explanatory punch and illumination, even if incorrect. We learn much by seeing how the state could have arisen, even if it didn't arise that way. If it didn't arise that way, we would also learn much by determining why it didn't; by trying to explain why the particular bit of the real world that diverges from the state-of-nature model is as it is." Anarchy, State and Utgpia, Basic Books, N.Y., 1974, p. 8-9. 5As Tom Bottomore claims, "The working out of an acceptable general theory in sociology may depend more than anything else upon the formula- tion of a new theory of history." Approaches tg.th§_5tudy gf_Social Structure, ed. Peter Blau, Free Press, N.Y., 1975, p. 171. 6"Once a first paradigm through which to view nature has been found there is no such thing as research in the absence of any paradigm." Thomas Kuhn, The Structure 9f Scientific Revolutions, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970. p. 53. 7Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe, trans. by Richard and Clara Winston, Vintage Books, Random House, N.Y., 1965, p. 350-1. 8See footnote in Prologue. 9Henry Veltmeyer, "Towards an Assessment of the Structuralist Inter- rogation of Marx: Claude Levi Strauss and Louis Althusser," Science and Society, v. 38, #4, p. 420-1. 10Jean Piaget, Structuralism, trans., Chaninah Maschler, Harper and Row, N.Y., 1971, p. 44. 11Jean Piaget, Main-Trends in Inter-disciplinary Research, Harper and Row, N.Y., 1973, p. 7. 12"An analysis of structure, however complete, does not tell you all that you may wish to know about an object. It tells you only what are the parts of the object and how they are related to each other; it tells you nothing about the relations of the object to objects that are not parts or components of it." Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge, Simon and Shuster, N.Y., 1948, p. 251. See footnote #3 above. 13Aharon Ben-Ami, Social Change 1 ___a_Hostile Environment, Princeton Univ. Press, 1969, p. 179. 14Reference here is to A.L. Kroeber's highly stimulating theory of "stimulus diffusion." See below for reference. 57 15A.L. Kroeber, The Nature pf_Culture, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1952, p. 357. 16". . . every civilization or way of life is a pattern of conduct in which the parts are interdependent. This interdependence is so multi- ple and so intimate that elements which, at first sight, look as if they could not have any connexion with one another turn out to be indissoluble when a practical experiment is made in replacing 50me single native ele- ment by some single foreign element . . . the single foreign element proves impossible to introduce without also introducing a whole set of other foreign elements." Arnold Toynbee, Ap_Historian's Approach pp. Reli ion, Oxford Univ. Press, London, 1956, p. 201. This is so because elements are only elements within a system of relations. The element is formed by the relations and thus takes on the character of the relations. 17"Language is the incarnation of the mentality of the race which fashioned it. Every phrase and word embodies some habitual idea of men and women as they ploughed their fields, tended their homes, and built their cities." Alfred North Whitehead, Ihp_Aims pf Education, New American Library, Mentor Books, N.Y., 1963, p. 71-2. And as Marshall McLuhan believes, "All actual and potential scientific theories are implicit in the verbal structure of the culture associated with them." 18Painters and sculptors have long been aware that objects are not within space but created their own space. 19Arno1d Toynbee, A Study pi History, vol. 12, Oxford Univ. Press, London, 1964, p. 23. 20Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, Signet Books, New American Library, N.Y., 1964, p. 105. 2Marshall McLuhan and Barrington Nevitt, Take Today: The Executive .pg Drop-out, Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, Inc., N.Y., 1972, p. 294. 22There is no strict homology of structures, as poets and translators know there are no synonyms strictly speaking. There can never be simple metonymic reduction of one thing to another. Physics can't be reduced to biology. nor philosophy to linguistics. Reduction and expansion only occurs in metaphor. "Each system cannot exactly express the other: there is therefore, first of all, an inadequacy of principle, which is the source of disequilibrium and of the transformation.” Marc Gaboriau, "Structural Anthropology and History,” from Structuralism, ed. Michael Land, Jonathan Cape Pub., London, 1970, p. 164. A HYPOTHETICAL EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL CHANGE ". . . we should regard perceptions not as pictures of reality but as hypotheses about it. . ."1 Strictly speaking, historical inquiry is entirely non-empirical. Historical inquiry is done by the imagination. It is theoretical, hypo- thetical, cognitive and, if done well, enables the historian and his public to re-cognize former states of action that characterized the past. The past, then, is perceptible, though not sensorily so. Since history is over, done, it can only be "an object of perception" of the "perceptual imagination."2 But what kind of object do we mean if not a sensory object? The past is objective in the sense of apprehension by the imagining capacity of the intellect alone. Intellectual objects are what Durkheim called "social facts,“ or Marx, "the relations of production," or as the mathe- matician Frege states, "I distinguish what I call objective from what is handleable or spatial or actual. The axis of the earth is objective, so is the center of the mass of the solar system, but I should not call them actual in the way the earth itself is so. We often speak of the equator as an imaginary line; but . . . it is only recognized or apprehended by thought. If to be recognized were to be created, then we should be able to say nothing positive about the equator for any period earlier than the date of its alleged creation.3 Perceiving social systems and historical processes as objects capable of comparison and open to investigation is the work of the 58 historian's imagination alone. Social relations are sensorily unappre- hendable, but are nevertheless real and potent. Societies can be thought of as systems of relations that direct and govern, but never wholly de- termine patterns of human interaction. The awareness and analysis of these patterns has moved to the forefront in importance for social obser- vers in the last 150 years. This section of the work will present a general hypothetical ex- planation of social change. But a word should be reintroduced about the presentational form. Since I am concerned with dynamic processes not static products, this explanation will try to demonstrate how factors in social change flow together, intereact, mutually inhibit and play- off, intensify and illuminate each other. Rather than analytically separating out individual factors and presenting them in artifical isolation I will present them as they occur to me. This presentational method is the only one I know of in which processes can be demonstrated. I want to give a sense of how factors interact as they intereact. Thus, the form of presentation is of more importance than the content. The presentational sequence of factors only reflects their occurance in my mind. It does not, as far as I can determine, reflect any order of importance of factors in the process of social change; nor does it reflect an attempt on my part to produce a formal equation indicating and corresponding to some sequence of events that universally charac- terizes social movements. Should either of these turn out to be true, I can truthfully state, I'll be more surprised than anybody. I do not feel compelled to stand by these ideas "through richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, for better or for worse" or until death, or the critics, do us part. They are meant to be only hypotheses not results. 60 Also, following R.G. Collingwood, I feel that evidence is anything "which is used as evidence, and no one can know what is going to be use- ful as evidence until he has had occasion to use it. The potential eVidence about a subject is all the extant statements about it. The actual evidence is that part of these statements which we decide to accept. But in scientific history the idea of potential evidence dis- appears; or, if we like to put the same fact in other words, everything in the world is potential evidence for any subject whatever."4 The structuralist approach to history means that social change pro- ceeds within the context of-a theory--theories are hypotheses-- of social change, and social structures conceived of as a set of possible struc- tures and their transformations of which the social structure that actually existed was only one, moves to the forefront as prior to change. The actual is now conceived as an instance of the possible. It is the con- ceiving of the actual as figure against the ground of the possible, as one instance of the set of possible figures, that releases historical inquiry from the task of exact reconstruction of the past. Reconstruc- tion, I assert, cannot be done. Historical inquiry can only assume “could be's" and "might have beens" at the level of social structure. Any understanding of social change is only partial and is completed in hypothesis. Understanding is model building. One fundamental impulse of historical inquiry is to help guide humankind, however imperfectly, into the future. Facts within the context of a theoretico-hypothetical construction only act in accordance with how the theory dictates they should act. Facts are arranged into explanations by the theory. This is not to say that facts can only be used in a single theoretical pattern. Should 61 another theory appropriate them, then they move and act in accordance with the dictates of their new despot. An excellent example of what I mean is the complementarity theory of the physicist Neils Bohr. Accord— ing to Bohr's theory, light can be considered as either waves or particles depending upon the theoretical context and the problem under investigation. Theories which deal with human actions can, however, never be so autocratic. Human beings are not reducible to the status of facts. The actions of human beings may be so considered with some justification, but never humanness. People can act in patterns which reflect and maintain the system of social relations that characterizes the society they inha- bit, but they can willingly and knowingly act in other ways also. Humans are never just elements within a social system as facts are elements in a theoretical system. On the contrary, social systems are constructions of a limited set of potential human actions which are maintained for purposes of social cohesion and advancement. Humans under the aegis of a social system are always more complex than that social system. Likewise, people observed ' under the theoretical microscope are more complex than that microscope. Facts acquire "being“ in their movement within theoretical directions. Humans may exhibit "being" in ways which theory can predict, but at the same time it must be remembered that this is only theoretical being, not humanness. The greater part of humanness is always beyond the pale of the theoretical light. Theories can explain patterns of human activity, but can never explain what it is to be human. This idea is crucial for it implies that human beings, though for purposes of theoretical coherence and cohesion can be considered as elements directed by the theory, thus exhibiting predictable patterns of 62 interaction, are always acting in ways which the theory cannot predict at the very time the theory is generating correct predictions. Humanness cannot be reduced to and considered as a conceptual category open for theoretical manipulation except by grossly limiting what it means to be human. (This is, of course, exactly what theories and social systems do. It is those people who choose to operate beyond the limits of socially meaningful interactions who disrupt and finally destroy social systems and overthrow theories. The above discussion may appear a trivial commonplace, but it pre- cludes us from talking of systems of human organization as somehow alive, sentient and volitional independent from human life and thought. To say, for example, “capitalism needs "or feudalism required," or, to go as far as Durkheim, "the social mind sees farther and deeper than any individual mind" is clearly to impute human character to an invention of the human mind; as if these inventions could somehow sustain themselves without the constant vigilance of their inventers. Capitalism, feudalism, soCial minds and any other mental inventions occupy the same wholly dependent position as Piaget's structures discussed in the last chapter (p. 8-9). Mental inventions cannot act independently. However, should we grant the hypothesis that they have such independence, the only way such inde- pendence could be demonstrated would be to remove all humans and let these entities act. But with the removal of the human minds, there is nothing left which could record these "independent" acts. Thus, this notion of the independence of mental inventions, at best, cannot be known. Capitalism is the actions of capitalist and the requirements of feudalism are the requirements of people. I am not trying to deny the 63 impact of the workings of social relations upon the determinations by people of their needs and requirements. I am simply saying that too great a concern for the determining power of "the system" can come dan- gerously close to absolving people from responsibility for their actions. If capitalism is exploitive the responsibility must be upon the shoulders of capitalists since they maintain capitalism. Should we take away people there is no capitalism. Should we take away capitalism we still have peeple. Theories of social change are explanatory models of corporate human action not complete definitions of humanness. And no theory will ever be able to attain such a definition. According to structuralist thought, this assertion is true since all people--past, present or future--will always remain within the "human structure," and the consistency, or purpose, of any structure or system can never be determined from within the structure. Theories and social systems as constructions of the human intelligence constitute sub-structures of the "structure of hummanness“-- which can not be known, only hypothesized, only inferred to exist in the same manner that Jungian archetypes are inferred to exist. Following structuralist thought, we can say that the "human struc- ture" can only generate new e1ements--i.e. theories, social systems etc.-- but can never generate a new structure of humanness. This is why any actual system is only one of a set of possibles. By implication, since every actual social system appeared out of the set of possibles, then every past social system is again within that set of possibility and can be recalled and reactivated. A part of a whole exists as long as the whole exists. When one kind of social system is broken down and overthrown by members of another, the overthrown social system is pushed back into the 64 realm of possibility while older, more elementary social systems, which the overthrown social system had dominated, reappear and are reactivated until members of a new more complex system consolidate their hold.S It seems to me that any theory which tries to illuminate the pro- cess of social change must attempt to account for any changes in forms of human consciousness that may accompany or, conversely, direct changes in social systems. That consciousness changes when social systems change seems as an acCepted a truth as the reverse statement, social systems change when consciousness changes. But these two statements tell us nothing beyond asserting a direct relationship between social systems and consciousness. We also need to know how this relationship might work and what sequence of events could occur within the relationship. An assertion that a relationship exists is not sufficient for its explanation. Ex- planation must attempt to show how the relation is acted out in ways that are at least probable. As discussed earlier, human beings, being more complex than any theories about them or social systems which are their vehicles for de- velopment, can act, if they so wish, in ways which are neither theore- tically predictable nor strictly determined by the social system. It is in this unpredictable, indeterminate, area of "humanness" that the process of social change originates. There is within people a social consciousness which operates directly in and according to the system of social relations which characterizes their society. It is that part of them that acts to maintain social norms, manners, mores and institutions. The process of social change originates outside this social consciousness in the larger consciousness 65 of social possibility. Any form of social consciousness is one form of social possibility--any actual is from the set of possibles. Thus, changes in a social system are preceeded by and built upon a new form of social possibility, which is a new form of consciousness. Although new here refers principally to new to a given society, it may also mean new to recorded human experience. This change in the form of consciousness is accomplished at first by only a single individual or a few individuals who intuit new possi- bilities for ordering human life. These individuals will endeavor to construct means to spread and reinforce their form of consciousness. This will require organization and some kind of embryonic institutional structure. New forms of consciousness need to be embodied in their own institutions to gain competitive organizational clout with the old social system before it will give way. The building of institutions is a cri- tical watershed for the diffusion and development in social form of a form of consciousness. Institutions are the attempt to build a social "objective correla- tive" of the intuition of new possibilities for human interaction. They are the social embodiment and transformer of a form of consciousness. They are maps which enable those who did not have the intuition to grasp the intuition. They are the social model of the mental image. The consciousness of the generality of any population changes only after the social institutions (i.e. legal, educational, economic, polit- iéal etc.) that direct and are the object of their social consciousness have been reworked and reformed by individuals operating with a new form of consciousness. It is the construction of social institutions as "objective correlatives" of the form of consciousness that enables the 66 majority of a population to acquire the new form of consciousness by channeling their social interactions into new patterns that grew out of and reinforce the new form of consciousness. Some people change their social environment, but most change because their social environment has changed. Of course, the majority can always decide not to submit to the directives of the new form of consciousness and send it back to the realm of possibles. But the important point is that for most people the acqui- sition of new consciousness comes after, not before, institutions have been constructed to direct them to act in new ways. When social insti- tutions are destroyed the social consciousness that fed and maintained them is destroyed also--though not simultaneously. Changes in forms of consciousness are indicated by changes in kinds of metaphors used to describe the workings of things. As one author said, "the most impressive contribution to the growth of intelligibility "6' It is meta- has been made by the application of suggestive metaphors. phorical usage that keys the change to new patterns of knowledge and hence new social systems. As indicated in the previous chapter, inte- gration is accomplished in the "space" between two entities. Metaphors are the bridges we construct to cross the threshold separating the old from the new. And the kind of metaphors used to describe what the new "looks like" in the mind is an indication of what it could look like when embodied in a social institution. This process of metaphorical transfer is done individually first, then spreads and acquires acceptance as its image enables its users to solve problems heretofore unable to be solved within the old form of consciousness. As Jonathan Miller points out, "The difference between Harvey and Galen was one of metaphorical equipment . . . One can only 67 assume that Galen's inability to see the heart as a pump was due to the fact that such machines did not become a significant part of the cultural scene until long after his death."7 But where do new metaphors come from? They come from outside the kind, the set, of metaphors used in building and maintaining a society. That is, they are imported either from other contemporary cultures, or are generated from close observation of a natural process, or are carried into the present from the past. Miller provides a beautiful example of the last. "Like his predecessors, Harvey was struck by the fact that individuals earned their immortality by proxy, perpetuating their other- wise impermanent form by handing it on to the generations that followed, and that this process repeated itself with orbital regularity. Unfor- tunately the link between successive generations was invisible, and there was no mechanical metaphor with which to bridge the gap. In order to explain how the reproductive mystery fulfilled itself, Harvey reverted to the ancient doctrine of the shaping supremecy of the soul, an idea which he had inherited from Aristotle, who was himself expressing one of the most universal intuitions of the human mind."8 This quote is pregnant with implications for explanation because it illustrates l) the conjuncture of past and present in Harvey's mind; 2) the use of metaphors for structuring insight and generating new sup- portive knowledge; 3) the existance of forms of thought--mechanical vs. organic-~in abrasion; 4) the Use of metaphor as a social map of personal intuition. This notion of metaphor as bridge between two worlds "carries over" into a discussion of the relation between theories which attempt to account for human actions and the unknowable "humanness." That is, there 68 arises the question, How is it possible that a sub-structure of a struc- ture, a part of a whole, can be substituted for that whole, and be imple- mented with efficient explanatory power when discussing something of which it is only a part? How can human beings be fooled into thinking, as were Frege et al, that inventions of the mind are ontologically inde- pendent from their inventors? It has for sometime been a scientific truth that "wholes are more than the sum of their parts." But this, it has been shown, is not always true. In mathematical logic, in the notion of "infinite aggregates," there arises the counter-truth that a part is equal to the whole. The notion of infinite aggregates is what logicians and physicists mean by a non-reentrant chain of causation where cause and effect are structurally integrated by relations of greater than and lesser than. Thus, each ele- ment is preceeded and succeeded by an element that is not equal to itself. An example is, of course, numbers where l is less than 2 which is less than 3 and so on. In infinite aggregation, a part is equal to a whole if there is a one to one correspondence between elements within each. Thus, for ex- : ample, if we take the whole set of integers in seriation, select out from that set only the even numbers and place these in one to one corres- pondence to the whole set of integers, we have equality between a whole and its part. It would look like this: 1,2,3’4,5’6oooo 2, 4, 6, 8, IO, 12 . . . Since there is an infinity of elements within each set there is always a one-to-one correspondence available. A part is equal to the whole under this condition of correspondence. 59 This discussion has important, though not readily apparent, impli- cations for a hypothesis of the process of social change. For there lies concealed within this discussion and its implications the germ of a hypo- thesis which might make plain an evolutionary, though not deterministic, trend to forms of consciousness. But first I must draw out what are the important implications. The notion of correspondence presents a possible explanation for the formation of the concept of group number, where, for example, the number 1 does not indicate a single object, but indicates a group of united objects. Unification of objects occurs on the basis of a shared quality (e.g. color) or shared function (e.g. ability to run). Unifica- tion then is the construction of a relation of correspondence between disparate objects. But the objects are never the same, they only share a quality or function and it is this isolation, or abstraction, of the quality or function and its extension to many objects that makes a group. Group number is the representing of this isolation and extension. It allows one to treat a collectivity as one would a single entity. This abstract awareness of relation allows new operations with numbers to be performed. The concept of group number breaks the bonds of concern for discovering individual "essence," and substitutes instead a concern for functional relation. Group numbers allow us first to manipulate_aggre- gates of objects, and later aggregates of relations between objects. This is the logic that built "class consciousness." A related development is available with words. For with the notion of infinite aggregates and one to one correspondence between individuals and groups in functional relation, there is made plain the notion that, "Ideas are universals because words always designate universals; and true 7O knowledge is of Ideas chiefly in the sense that every representation as such has a universal relation not the individual phenomenon, as its con- tent."9 Thus, words and ideas and ideas and human actions can have this same one to one correspondence.‘ This is how language can explain all of human actions. More importantly, this discussion shows how a sub-structure, a part of a structure, can be substituted for a whole structure since, if the conditions of one to one correspondence are constructed and held, there can be no element of the sub-structure which won't find its correlary in the larger structure. This is, of course, the process of metaphorical extension. Thus, a part substituted for a whole can explain the whole if the one to one correspondence of elements is constructed. But it is only under this condition that such explanatory power can be imputed to the sub-structure. This does not imply that the part has all the elements that the whole possesses. It simply means that a specific kind of cor- respondence can be constructed between sub-structure and structure and it is this correspondence that is taken for explanation. It means, for example, that human beings can be metaphorically reduced to correspond to categories of thought (e.g. "economic man" or "Homo Sapien") for purposes of explaining themselves. Or, it enables social theorists to explain the structure and growth of societies from an economic, political, epistemological, historical etc. perspective according to the terms of the "most important" sub-structure of the society. Or, nature can be explained by mathematics. Finally, it enables a theorist to substitute his conceptual system for an entire social system and explain social changes in terms of his own intellectual logic. A concept replaces a 71 social process and the manipulation of that concept replaces the manipu- lation of the process. This ability to explain one thing in terms of another, accomplished through correspondence and substitution to create equivalency, represents a great awakening of power in the human mind. The ability to metaphorize, to construct analogies, is crucial for studying changes in forms of con- sciousness. For there are apprehendable levels in ability to employ metaphorical thought. Each level reveals different capabilities of the mind which more clearly denote its development. There is first the substitution of names for objects. For every object there is a name, for every observed process there is a name. This is the consciousness exhibited by Adam in the Genesis story. Later, cor- respondence begins to occur between thought and objects and the first signs of process are visible. This is exemplified in the notion of the Platonic Ideal. Fer every material object there is a corresponding immaterial idea. But beyond this correspondence, indeed constructing the correspondence, is the Ideal, that which has no corresponding object in the material world. All material process is an attempt to more per- fectly embody the non-material Ideal. Still later, there is the substitution of thoughtitself for the material world. That is, thought proceeds according to its own internal processes and these processes themselves unlock the secrets of the ma- terial world by penetrating into objects and discovering their internal workings and relations. Thought is differentiated from nature, is more powerful than nature. It is this substitution in importance of thought for observation which is the foundation for experimentation or interfer- ence in that natural processes to discover that which is not observable. 72 This level reveals thought acting to interfere with nature, to break nature down, and rebuild nature into concepts via experimentation with logical relations internal to thinking itself. This is a great reversal. Previously, thought took its lead from natural processes. Now nature became the servant of thought. Nature was symbolized into concepts and it is these concepts that were manipulated to reveal nature's secrets. With the awakening of the ability to symbolize his world, man ob- tained self-consciousness as individuality of person and species, dis- tinct from nature. He became consciously rational. Prior to full symbols man apprehended his world by signs. Signs are of limited gen- erality, and the ability to generalize rests upon making clear conceptual distinctions between notions of essence and constructions of function. What is the difference between signs and symbols? "A sign indicates the existence--past, present, or future-- of a thing, event, or condition . . . The logical relation between a sign and its object is a simple one: they are associated, somehow, to form a pair; that is to say they stand in one to one correlation . . . the sub- jects uses the pair of items."10 "Symbols are not proxy for their objects, but are vehicles for the conception of objects . . . In talking about things we have conceptions of them, not the things themselves; and it is the conceptions, not the things, that symbols mean."11 "The sign is something to act upon, or a means to command action; the symbol is an instrument of thought . . . In an ordinary sign-function, there are three essential terms: subject, sign and object. In denotation, which is the commonest kind of symbol- function, there have to be four: subject, symbol, conception and object. The radical difference between sign-meaning and symbol-meaning can 73 therefore be logically exhibited, for it rests on a difference of pattern, it is strictly a different function."12 It is in awakening and strengthening the symbol-using powers of the mind that substitution of thought processes for observation of natural processes occurs. With this awakening and substituting of a part, that is thought, for the entire spectrum of human activities--bodily actions, emotions etc.--there occurred an overemphasis on the importance of thinking. However, it was only with the discovery of thinking as interferring with nature that humanity began to separate itself entirely from nature, began to think of itself as qualitatively different and greater than nature, and distanced itself from the natural world. With the ability to substitute one thing for another (e.g., a name for an object) in sign- using functions humanity first broke out of his absolute dependence upon nature. But with one substitution there can occur endless substitutions-- once the organic bond is broken there is no end to the breaking--each one arranged in one-to-one correlation. First names replace objects, then qualities replace names, then relations replace qualities. Each one a classification scheme that is taken for apprehension. Eventually signs are replaced with symbols and the appearance of symbols indicates that concepts as purely intellectual entities are pre- sent. Thoughts can generate other thoughts without mediation through objects. Manipulation of symbols indicates that concepts rather than objects are the main focus of attention. Indeed, it signals that ob- jects are only secondary to comprehension and understanding since symbols exist without objects because symbols refer to conceptions. 74 The development of symbolization was the great work of post-12th century Europe. However, this development was and still is fraught with dangers. With the development of the innate ability to symbolize, to construct purely conceptual edifices in the mind, to interfere with and reconstruct nature according to the directions of thought, with this great revolution in self-discovery and awareness, there came the dark qualities of individual pride, self-interest, desire for fame, power and glory. Symbolization replaced and overcame signification, but did not extinguish it anymore than speech extinguishes gesture. Symboliza- tion means the substitution of a concrete-specific relation by a abstract- general relation. In economic life this substitution portended, though early Europe was not aware of the portent, a shift away from concentra- tion on producing goods for use-value toward production for exchange- value. Use value predominates when wants and needs are concrete, speci- fic, limited and mainly perishable. Exchange value flourishes and creates abstract-general wants and needs. Should exchange value wants and needs spread through a sdciety the result is mass production and mass society: the appearance of "the public." There is during this switch from use to exchange value an attempt to maintain significant results from symbolic processes. This is manifested in nostalgic longings for the simpler life and "the good old days." The drive for more general forms of symbolization is always accom- panied by new forms of mathematical systems and conceptions, and by new systems of standardization of social relations. Greek numbers were signs, sixteenth-century European numbers were symbols. The sign-symbol difference may be illustrated in the poetic vs. scientific use of words. Poets, in the main, use words as signs to 75 indicate specific objects or to communicate a specific perceptual rela- tion with the world. Poetry, like most art, is more at home in the world of particulars.13 Scientists use words as symbols, as vehicles for conceptualization of the world. Science is the search for and construction of general laws and axioms. Science is more at home with systems. This dichotomy, though admittedly simplified and artificial, re- veals the more important idea that words can be used as either signs or symbols. As Susanne Langer says, ". . . a word may be used as a sign, but that is not its primary role. Its signific character has to be indicated by some special modification--by a tone of voice, a gesture or the location of a placard bearing the word. In itself it is a symbol, associated with a conception, not directly with a public object or event. The fundamental difference between signs and symbols is this difference of_association, and consequently of their use by the third party to the meaning function, the subject; signs announce their objects to him, whereas symbols lead him to conceive their objects."14 Along with language, there have been three other human inventions that have operated as both signs and symbols: mathematics, art and money. Though money is a derivative of mathematics, because it exercises such a profound influence in human affairs I chose to include it among these special inventions. The history of all these "metaphorical systems" has been a progres- sion from sign to symbol, from an initially fixed one to one correlation to multiple functions and relations, from explicit to implicit, from specificity to generality, from discreteness to unity, from independence to dependence, from individual to group, though never at the same speed and rarely at the same time or place. 76 These systems are powerful because they can be both sign or symbol, and thus are able to translate all forms of human experience into them- selves and store that information for communication across vast stretches of space and time, both diachronically and synchronically. "Language is metaphor in the sense that it not only stores but tran- slates experience from one mode to another. Money is metaphor in the sense that it stores skill and labour and also translates one skill into another."15 Art is metaphor in the sense that it stores and translates modes of apprehension of form. Mathematics is metaphor in the sense that it stores and translates quantity and movement. Changes in these four methods of storing and translating human ex- perience indicate great changes in forms of consciousness, and, by impli- cation, indicate the pattern which changes imposed upon the material world will take.‘6 When the form of consciousness changes, the natural world and the human physical environment will soon undergo drastic changes. For example, irrational numbers were not acknowledged to be numbers by the Greeks, even by Plato's time. Irrational numbers were literally "unspeakable." Should someone assert the existence of the irrational, their life and the lives of others would be in grave danger. According to the Greeks, to speak the unspeakable would invoke a harmful demon and call him into existence in the world of man. It was the Greek equivalent to the curse of the pharaoh. Irrational numbers, because they were not integers, were not "whole natural numbers," had no integrity and could not be integrated into the rational Greek world of discrete entities. Later, the Arabs, and even more the post twelfth-century Europeans, accepted irrational numbers by dispensing with notions of ontology and 77 emphasizing instead the practical uses of numbers--e.g. commerce and architecture. Through the use of irrational numbers, such architectural expressions as arches and flying buttresses, previously very difficult to handle mathematically, became easy to solve mathematically and con- struct architecturally. Irrationals enable their users to locate forces of continuity and propulsion within moving objects. Buttresses, for example, are frozen movement. Greek concerns for static ontology and wholeness did not allow them to make such deductions.17 However, the fundamental assumptions of numbers were not questioned by anybody until the mid-nineteenth century. What occurred between the twelfth and the mid-nineteenth centuries was, in one sense, merely an enlargement of the set of acceptable numbers within a still basically Greek rational mental universe. Indeed, in the nineteenth century a rationality to irrationality was found.18 But a great innovation was injected into twelfth-century European mathematics. It was zero. Zero established the relation of number to number on a purely functional, methodological, basis. Since zero had no value, but merely indicated a position within a column of figures, it had the effect of linking the discrete numbers of the Greeks into a system of functional relation. This was a difficult idea for Europeans.19 This new system of number relations introduced Europeans to symbolic processes in mathematics. The way to mechanization and industrialization was started. The conquering of the natural world and its reconstruction according to the blueprint of rationality had begun. With the discovery of non-Euclidian geometry in the nineteenth century, the fixed logical foundations of mathematics were completely under- mined. The Greek based single-system mathematics was discovered to be only one of several kinds of geometries available to the mathematician. 78 For the Greeks, numbers indicated and classified single entities and grasped individual essences. Numbers were signs which corresponded to objects in one-to-one correlation. By Plato's and Aristotle's time however, this simple-eprrelation was giving way to more advanced notions of system and relations between objects. Symbol-function was a vague light on the mental horizon. With the introduction of zero and the development of internal func- tional relations between numbers, the idea that symbols could be manipu- lated to direct changes in the physical world, to experiment and reform in new patterns, became the dominant mode of thinking in all "modernizing" sectors of advancing societies. But the discovery of non-Euclidian geometries disrupted and finally exploded all notions of limited one-to-one correlation, of bridging dichotomies, of fully explaining one thing in terms of another, or of discovering and apprehending the "essence" of anything. With non- Euclidian geometries, Boolean algebra and other mathematical inventions and the philosophical changes they imply, any one-to-one correlation can be logically constructed if the conditions are defined beforehand, any- thing can be explained in terms of any other thing and not just in terms of more obvious analogies, and "essence" is unknowable since an infinite number of functional relations can be constructed. So, rational impera- tives are replaced with situational choice, intellection as applied experimentation is replaced with understanding a thing in the conditions under which it appears, and "truth" is constructed. Such a change in consciousness signals a world of great dynamism, complexity and limita- tion. Apprehension becomes understanding the limiting factors and conditions operating in any situation, and these limiting factors are nothing less than every factor accountable in the situation. 79 In mathematical thought, for example, points ceased being considered as either discrete "things“ or as unobservable but nevertheless function- ally profitable mental images, and became intersections of spacial coordi- nates which exist in every geometry but only under the conditions of that geometry.20 Points ceased being illustrations and became information. In language, ideas ceased being thought of as impressions in the mind or as the linguistic equivalent of mathematically discrete points, and became intersections of verbal and syntactical coordinates in the structure of any particular language. Ideas are within the structure of language and are defined by that structure. We simply draw them out of their language nest. In painting, the rapid and successive appearance of Impressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism all exhibited the change away from a concern with exterior landscapes to concern with interior land- scapes. Literature, poetry, logic, and linguistics all attempted to erect an entirely symbolist architecture of thought and feeling. Even historical inquiry, as I have tried to show in this work, could not think of the past as appearing in the intersection of the perceptua- cognitive coordinates of contemporary thought about it. In economics, money and even the market itself became commodities available to the highest bidder. The guiding hand was replaced with the corporate head. In all of the great metaphorical systems the dominating theme be- came the actual is an instance of the possible. The isomorphic unity that was thought to exist between creation and the human mind was irretrievably shattered by the crushing weight of all possible isomor- phisms that could be constructed. Unity in uniformity is replaced by unity in diversity. 80 The past is within the present, the present completes the past. Evolution is not accomplished by forging uniform and successive living links onto a dead chain, but is accomplished by the preservation of previous mental processes through operational integration in new mental processes of greater complexity. Bohr's theory of the composition of light again provides a good example. Bohr imagined correspondence as a mediation between the discontinuum (particles of light called phdtons) and the continuum (wave properties). Could this not be considered the integration and preservation of both the Greek world of discrete discontinuities and the post-twelfth century European world of continuities? In all three systems of thought, the Greek, the European, and the contemporary, the notion of correspondence is exhibited and preserved. It was the natural philosophers of post-twelfth century Europe who invented and held dear the Theory of Correspondentia; the belief in the essential connectivity of all things, and the mathematics to prove it. But from this epistemological ground of the ethereal connectivity of the cosmos, this philosophy of internal relations, was evoked and constructed the dualities of inner vs. outer, mind vs. body, and all the rest, as figures. Previously, against the epistemological ground of essential discontinuity that characterized the Greek world, the figure of Ideal connectivity was constructed. Post-twelfth century European thought was the flipside of Greek thought. Moreover, since both sides are preserved and incorporated through contemporary integration, the hiStorian can enter into and re-cognize them. He can experience the past. History is empirical after all. The Greek world and the ore-modern European world are both figures_against the contemporary ground of probability. 81 "There are within social structures certain elements or forces which are at the same time their constituent parts and impulses operating toward their supersedence or change."21 This idea of supersedence via forces within a social structure is one which must be confronted and refuted since it raises the specter of "internal contradictions." According to structuralist thought, impulses within a social struc- ture cannot operate to supersede that structure since elements generated by the structure always serve to preserve the structure. Impulses can operate to supersede structures but not of their own accord. They must first be appropriated by an external agency. Impulses toward superse- dence can be considered, at best, purely inactive, "latent," within social structures. It is the external force which activates them and powers them toward supersedence. It should be noted that any element so appropriated can act to supersede its structure and not just "certain elements." The notion of supersedence can really only be understood in conjunction with its opposite, the notion of preservation. Elements that are appropriated cease to operate to preserve the structure and, instead, operate to supersede it. But elements cannot operate to pre- serve the structure at the same time they are acting to supersede it. For the latent to become manifest, for "internal contradictions" to appear, the environment outside the social system must change. Or better, the operating equilibrium between the social system and its environment must change. In reality contradictions do not operate within systems, but are constructed and activated by "foreign" elements intruding into the structure. To the extent we can speak of internal contradictions without re- ferring to actions originating beyond the frontiers of the social system, 82 we are really speaking of sub-structural frontier abrasion and interplay. The interplay of sub-structures within a social structure is but another example of the continually precipitous climate of change that operates in the "integrative space" between any proximate entities. The appear- ance of contradiction means simply that in one area of the social order the dominant system of social relations is no longer dominant. It has either been replaced by a stronger system or has reverted to a more ele- mentary level of social organization. Any major innovation appearing in the social system upsets the established relations of interaction between sub-structures, that is, between definable groups of the population. Soon, an awareness of the deepening contradictions between the innovating sub-structure and other sub-structures, and between the innovation sub-structure and the struc- ture grows among the more alert members of the society. The appearance of innovation in a society, its root metaphor and social patterning, becomes the model for resolving subsequent contradictions generated by the first. Indeed, the extended application of a new metaphor itself generates contradictions. Structural change occurs in societies whenever a stronger social structure destroys a weaker one. The stronger social structure does this by federating to itself (i.e. appropriating) sub-structures within the weaker structure. Stronger social structures are those that operate cohesively and efficiently at greater distances than those social struc- tures they are proximate with. The ability to operate at great distances is accomplished by the speedy material transport of messages, decisions and material goods, and this transport is accomplished by the storing and translating facilities of the great metaphoric systems. Societies 83 can extend themselves and maintain that extension only insofar as the flow of information from frontier disruptions to the decision-makers and back is faster than the corrosive effect of frontier construction-‘ integration of new elements which ceaselessly work to supersede the society. Once a sub-structure is federated to a new social structure, that sub-structure begins to act according to the "principles of reasoning,9 the patterns of relations, that characterize the appropriating social structure. This is the first appearance of contradiction within the old social structure. Destruction of a social system occurs because the relations that structure the interaction of people in the appropriating social system, which are products of a stronger mental structure indi- cated by stronger metaphorical systems, increase the speed and efficiency of certain activities that operated in the weaker structure--e.g. trade, learning, legal networks and foundations. An unmanageable imbalance is set-up within the weaker structure. The dynamic equilibrium that charac- terized the weaker structure is overwhelmed and the weaker society ex- plodes.22 The immediate result of this explosion is the breakdown of social cohesion in the area of disruption. The pattern of social relations dissolves and eventually the population is thrown back upon more elemen- tary processes of social organization until the members of the new order 23 Paradoxically, then, the first visible effect consolidate their hold. of the appropriation of a weaker society by a stronger society is to throw the population of the weaker society back onto even weaker, more elementary, forms of social organization. Only then do they make the leap into the stronger. It is almost as if they have to unlearn all the progress they had built up before they can learn anything new. 84 Protracted socialupheaval begins with the construction to aware- ness of new differences between groups within a society. These new differences are the result of innovation. For innovation as the impor- tation of technical advances, whether in goods or organization, cannot be divorced from the pattern of thought and perception that originally constructed it. Importation of "foreign" goods and services means, implicitly,,importation of the form of thought which manufactured them. Innovation results not only in the creation of new social differ- . ences among a population, but also serves to evoke the figure of old and aggravating differences from their social ground of accepted human relations. These new differences clash with the traditional differences and this clash of differences generates intense psychic and social strain until a new social ground is established. The appearance of new social differences-~e.g. an increase in wealth, learning or status among a traditionally underprivileged group--disrupts the armistice of old differences. This disruption is critical. For the differences that characterized a social order are inherently part of that order. Unity and diversity constitute a structural conjunction and integration of opposites within a social structure. In this sense, social differences are integral to a social structure's form and main- tenance. In fact, a social structure is nothing more than the way human relations are set-up to maintain, both through unwritten and unspoken mores and through formal institutions, certain differences between groups of people. Societies are built upon and maintain themselves upon such differences. With the awareness of new differences, traditional differ- ences surface as potential and purposeful impulses toward supersedence. Yet, with the appearance of new differences, old differences become' 85 irrelevant to structural integrity. And the passing relevancy of old differences is accompanied by the passing relevancy of old unities. Unity and difference are in conjunction. When one goes so does the other. The social structure creates its own forms of unity and diversity between the sub-structures it has federated. Should the authority of the social structure become undermined and irrelevant, then opposition to that authority is likewise irrelevant. After all, should men from Mars establish Martian rule over Earth, to continue opposition to the defunct United Nations would be ludicrous. However, many within a crumbling social order react to the aware- ness of new differences by struggling to regain the relevancy of the old differences, in both their supportive and oppositional forms, as a means of maintaining a traditional sense of group and/or individual identity. But the moment new differences are present, fighting to maintain old differences is a hopelessly futile means of coping with changing social realities. Others, who fully accept the new differences derived from the innovation, and strive to establish the dominance of these new differ- ences through the wholesale importation of the society from which the innovation originated, also fail to see the nature of social change. They fail to realize that within the society from which the innovation originated the innovation was not an innovation but a structural product. It only became an innovation through exportation out of that society. The co-existence and clash of new differences with old differences against the ground of the transitional more elementary social relations renders both sets of difference visible and therefore changeable. We can only change that which we are aware of. A new social system is 86 constructed and formulated in the resolution of this clash. Most groups within the changing society, however, are an odd mixture of revolutionary- reactionary impulses. Such a clash of differences is very visible in the crisis experi- enced by the Christian church in Europe in the 13th-15th centuries.24 After the influx of new knowledge and learning from Greek and Arab sources, there grew a great splintering and competition of loyalties within the ranks of church supporters. Many new orders of monks, seeking to rediscover and relive those traditional values which had been the well- spring of the monk's life, and which they felt had fallen into decay through church corruption, were formed. Within the church administrative structure, there grew counter-movements toward centralization and consoli- dation. Many left the church altogether to find their destiny in new and more promising fields of enterprise such as universities, but especi- ally in law and commerce. Open disputes with the Byzantine church over which was the true church were fomented by church leaders in Rome to unify their believers. There was a powerful thrust to update and increase the church's bureaucratic machinery. In addition, the Crusades were kindled and fanned into a conflagration by resurrecting the deep-seated antipathy harbored towards the Arab peoples and Islam. Within church dogma and theology, Abelard's §l___;_Npp_dealt a crushing blow to the presumed unchallengeable authority of the church fathers and saints. All these competing activities were instigated by the interjection and diffusion of new knowledge, new forms of thought and perception, learned from the Greek and Arab scholars in Spain and Italy. The splint- ering of the church threw it back on more elementary forms of social organization, until a new "rationality“ was constructed. 87 An innovation is the resolution of a problem which appears in society through knowledge that originates outside the social structure of know- ledge. That is, the knowledge originates either in individual "genius" or in another society. As noted earlier, transformations inherent within a structure never lead beyond the structure but always preserve the laws of the structure. Inherent transformations are always incremental, never relational, always quantative never qualitative. All structures, includ- ing social structures, work to preserve their laws of construction and maintenance. Thus, a structuralist cannot admit, as can the theorist of "internal contradictions," that the solution to pll_problems which appear in society are "latent" or generated from within the social structure since such an admission indicates that all solutions can be constructed out of the same system of relations that generated the problem. If this 25 The necessity for were true the problem would be its own solution. innovation implies that the chief obstacle to solving some problems is the social structure of knowledge itself. Forms of consciousness, like all structures, can never be both consistent and complete. The great crisis of any social order is the breakdown of its form of consciousness, the bankruptcy of its particular world-view. New forms of consciousness are the only solution to this crisis. The confrontation and understanding of unpredicted novelties is humanity's only means of advancement. But what may be novelty to one is "old hat? to another. One form of con- sciousness is always replaced by another. There is no such thing as operating without a form of consciousness. As human beings strive for a more complete understanding of the world, however, any existing system of social or mental relations must eventually give way. Every social system and form of consciousness is a manifestation of human potential we learn to live without. 88 Innovations, which begin with the introduction of a product of a different thought form, destroy the social structure they intrude. As discussed in the previous chapter, one foreign element overthrows an empirical generalization. Likewise, one innovation destroys a social structure; though obviously not immediately. When some within a society, motivated either out of curiosity for the new or out of an awareness that the solution to a particularly re- calcitrant problem lies outside the frontiers of what is known to them, begin to investigate "fOreign" domains of human knowledge, the social environment is readied within which an innovation can take hold. This is especially true if the motivation is of the latter type. With the importation and construction of a solution from new assumptions, the social structure begins to crack. The breach is widened with successful attempts to operationalize the solution. Since the innovation resolves the problem, and presumeably indicates the way to solve those related prolems which appear with the exhaustion of the explanatory potential of the existing form of consciousness, it can be considered the equivalent of a stronger structure of knowledge. The introduction of the foreign element begins the process of constructing new patterns of social rela- tions. Operationalization of an innovation requires that a new system of social relations be constructed. The major innovations are always carried out in the invisible rela- tions that structure the social and mental environment of people. New relations do not well up from hidden springs of "latent" "internal con- tradictions" within social structures. New relations begin to form when elements are interjected into a system from outside, and grow when that system tries to integrate something it has no method of producing. 89 Contradictions are constructed, they don't just appear. The two words "internal contradictions" are mutually exclusive in structuralist thought since to be internal means to be harmonious with the structure. It is only when one structure intrudes in another, appropriates elements of that structure and either puts them to new purposes or increases their efficiency and power, that contradictions appear. Social systems cannot innovate in response to themselves since they always respond in ways which preserve their laws. Contradictions, then, can never be latent since a contradiction is never within a system. If it were, it would not be a system. Contradictions are potentially present only insofar as any element within a structure can be appropriated and put to new uses by a stronger structure. To speak of latency is hindsight. Prior to awareness there is no awareness. Awareness of latency, of contradiction, is a Looking Backwards. It is to assert that awarenss existed before it really did. It is re- verse teleology. Like Merlin in T.H. White's, The Once and Future King, awareness of latency is a living backwards. A The raising of a thing to awareness is done by investing that thing with a form that is different from the fOrm of its existence within its "native" environment.26 When a thing is part of an environment it is indistinguishable from that environment. Awareness of a part of an environment brings the entire environment to awareness. So, raising an environment to our consciousness is accomplished by injecting a foreign element into it. The attempts by that environment to "come to grips" with the foreign element reveals its sytem of relations, creates new forms, and constructs new elements. Like the irritating grain of sand in the oyster, one foreign element reveals the hidden, unawakened pro- cesses an environment uses to preserve itself. 90 These new forms make old forms visible. Awareness can only mean awareness of difference. There is no such thing as awareness of ident- 27 ity, since identity means singleness. Identity simply is, awareness is a process. Within the history of the great metaphorical systems, there have occured great changes in their logical foundations. These changes have progressed, though with little regularity, from lesser generality to greater generality, thus roughly approximating the movement of human thought from signs to symbols. These changes, or perhaps better, these breakthroughs, are the appearance of levels of standardization upon the stage of history. For example, in language there has appeared, starting from purely oral cul- tures, breakthroughs into representative pictures (pure signs), to inven- tion of syllabic alphabets, to phonetic writing (symbols) to the invention of print. In mathematics prior to the last century, the succession moved from objects to integers representing objects (signs), to group numbers and classification of objects by attribute (beginning symbols), to func- tional relations and positional placement via introduction of zero. In money, there was an evolution from simple one for one trade to one for several trade, to storing of wealth in important commodities, to coinage, to credit. All of these inventions were indications that their inventors had advanced to a stronger, more general, more relationally inclusive, struc- ture of knowledge. The fundamental assumption underlying the idea of standardization is that all objects, including people, are and can be connected via a system of relations, and that the structure of those relations can follow the logical structure of a metaphorical system. 91 For example, the 14th century European discovery of a mathematics to graph, account for, and predict motion was a major building block 28 That is, the construc- toward mechanization of the production process. tion of the principles of mechanics in mathematical form allowed for easy application of these principles, to a whole new range of human activities, since to learn the principles one had only to learn and employ the mathematical form, not observe and reproduce mechanical ob- jects. Getting knowledge in mathematical form rather than through obser- 29 Information vation and reproduction, represented a new thought form. replaced illustration. The application of these new mathematical ideas to moving objects allowed for more precise synchronization of moving machine parts, and this synchronization was built upon the prior synchronization of time 30 with motion. Eventually, though never unavoidably, even the movem- ments of human beings were synchronized with the movements of machines, 31 and mechanization became dominant. Mechanization is the structuring of social relations upon mathematical premises and logic.32 The effects of standardization are the same as those of innovation: unification and division, to cleave together and cleave apart. Once a standard is established it enables its users to progress very rapidly because it translates all disparate relations into its own and stores them for transport anywhere within the area it dominates. ‘Standardiza- tion is the federation of many sets of social relations under one domi- nant set. For example, the invention of print created the standardized national language at the same time it created regional dialects as an effect of creating the national language.33 92 Later, at the end of the 18th century, European scholars rediscovered these dialects as art-ferms, as storehouses of past experiences. But in countries where language had been standardized, this only served to re- awaken the suppressed animosities of the linguistically and politically dominated groups. As Peter Burke states, "Since a standard literary language already existed, the discovery of dialect was divisive."34 Burke provides another example of these two effects of standardi- zation in his discussion of the speed-up of commodity production. He says, "The rise of the market increased demand, and to cope with demand, the process of production was standardized. There could be no question of producing objects for the special requirments of the individual cus- tomer, as had been tradition . . . It was only a matter of a generation or two before the man-made artifact would begin to yield to the standard- ized, machine-made, mass—produced artifact. The rise of the market also eroded local material culture."35 The standardization of the process of production increased the speed and efficiency of the production process, thus cleaving together all disparate handicraft processes. But this unifying of production, divided, clove apart, and suppressed the handicraft production process. Every strong integrative process is accompanied by a desintegrative process. Every breakthrough into a new logical ground for the metaphori- cal systems disintegrates the previous grounds and re-evokes them as figures. So, for example, every new ground for mathematics creates new sets of numbers within the new logical framework. Likewise, the invention of print and the national language created dialect. As Burke implies in the previous quote, the standardization of pro- cesses seems to acquire the status of a social imperative when the 93 disruptions in a society-~in Burke's example, the disruption was increased demand of commodities--overstep the threshold of manageability of an exist- ing process. Innovation and standardization are the Alpha and Omega of social change. Innovation, by increasing the speed of disruption can lead to standardization of relations as a strategy of managing chaos. The innovation. of print provides a good example. -The ability to read the national language means that the reader is both producer and consumer of national events. He becomes a participant in the national consciousness. But the elevation of a language to the level of national language is done at the expense of all other languages.36 Print, while establishing the material basis for the development of a consciousness of nationhood, and federating all dialects within its linguistic "territory," effected intense new divisions between men and 37 When women, town and country, rich and‘poor, Protestant and Catholic. the ability to read became a skill of the "masses," the social status that formerly went with literacy was undermined. Thus, while print opened up vast new possibilities for social mobility, by doing so it threatened and brought down the established structure of social relations. In addition, print, like the new mathematics, created new forms and habits of thought.38 Whenever such a standardization occurs within a sector of a society, that sector, that sub-structure, becomes the focal center of change in that society.39 Since the standardizers possess a stronger--i.e. more general--structure of knowledge, they can generate, translate, store, communicate, and retrieve more information faster than others can. This advantage allows them to manage levels of potential disruption that des- troy weaker structures. It allows them to exercise a greater organizational 94 40 This, in another form, ability over the other sectors of the society. is the same "psychic rain" which Toynbee asserts explodes weaker social systems. Except here the rain's source is from a sector which emanci- pated itself from the social matrix of relations and created a new frontier.41 The process of successful standardization, initiated by intense social pressure from externally induced disruptions, proceeds by pene- tration to and construction of a new logical foundation for establishing 42 This mental relations among elements within a metaphorical system. innovation provides the keys for managing the greater level of disrup- tion, by greatly increasing the efficiency and extendability of social organizational capabilities; that is, by integrating and overlaying existing relations with more general relations. However, as a conse- quence of integration and dominance, intense new divisions are constructed among dominated groups. These new differences, added to the old, will burst forth if a new innovation disrupts and destroys the overlaying integration. Innovation and standardization complete each other. In lieu of anykind of capsule summary of an untidy presentation of ideas and hypotheses, I will limit myself to brief comments upon some of the major processes I see at work in social change. First and foremost, social change begins, I believe, outside the system of mental and social relations, in one or more of three "areas": individual genius or the intuition of new social possibilities; innova- tion, the importation or appearance of material and mental advances-- advances here refers simply to the process of problem resolution; appro- priation, the destruction by intrusion, or "psychic rain," of one society by another. Of the three, the latter is by far the most rapidly 95 cataclysmic. But all three are intertwined in any instance of social change. They differ only in their relative strength accorded within a particular case of social change. As for "internal contradictions" being the engine of change, I argued that we are aware of them ex post facto. We postulate that they must have been working in invisible ways prior to our awareness of them as a way of accounting for change. But prior to awareness there is no awareness, and since "internal contradictions" are not human beings they cannot operate independently of our awareness of them. Internal contra- dictions are constructed by people. General social change is preceeded by and is built upon a prior change in the form of consciousness of a few individuals. New forms of consciousness must be institutionalized in "objective correlatives" in order to direct others to acquire the new form of consciousness through socially interacting in new patterns. The motive to acquire a new form of consciousness is increased with every success the new form has in solving long-standing problems which the old form of consciousness could not solve. I Changes in forms of consciousness are indicated by changes in domi- nant metaphors. These new metaphors carry the image of a solution with them, as was shown with example of Harvey's search for a metaphor to explain reproduction. Great movements in social change, such as 12th century Europe spawned, are results of advances to new levels of generality made in one or more of the four great metaphorical systems: language, mathematics, art, and money.43 Changes in these four systems show the advance of thought from sign to symbol, and all their internal stages. Changes in levels of apprehension 95 of the world through signs and then symbols represent, to me, the slow long-range diachronic developmental changes in human consciousness. Opposed to these are the, by comparison, rapid short-range upheavals of synchronic social change. I have called these advances in the four systems "levels of standardization." I suppose if the processes which I have hypothesized to occur in “successful" social change could be arranged in a coherent sequence, the sequence might look something like the following: 1) There occurs a general increase in the speed of social disruption caused by the intrusion, forced or imported, of "foreign" elements which the existing social system attempts to incorporate. 2) This disruption and attempted incorporation creates new differ- ences among groups in the population. These new differences evoke and clash with old differences. This clash throws the entire social struc- ture into a state of unmanagable imbalance. 3) There occurs a breakdown in social cohesion which radiates out from that sector of the society most directly affected by the intrusion. This throws the population back onto more elementary forms of social organization. The unstable transitional period lasts until a new social order is constructed. 4) A resolution of differences is accomplished, perhaps by standardi- zation. A new society develops. New advances into the metaphorical sys- tems may occur. At any rate, new differences become institutionalized and a relatively stable period follows marked by internal equilibrium of sub-structures, and of the structure with the external environment. This lasts until a new intrusion is made and the process repeats itself. Solu- tions create new problems in need of solution. FOOTNOTES 1Jonathan Miller, Ihp_Body ip_guestion, Random House, N.Y., 1978, p. 337. 2"Object of perception is Hayden White's phrase. See Metahistory p. 30. "Perceptual imagination" is from R.G. Collingwood's Ipp_1dea pf_ History. 3Quoted in David Bloor's, Knowledgp_and Social Imagery, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1976, p. 85. Frege makes a fundamental mistake however, I cannot agree with him that these "objects" are not creations of thought. They are thought-forms of actual objects. Frege is con- fusing unquestioned assumptions with independent ontological existence. Bloor states, “. . . the theoretical component of knowledge is precisely the social component." (p.86). Bloor believes there is a structure of knowledge which characterizes an human society, but that structure of knowledge is generated from social structural arrangements. Zevedei Barbu echoes Bloor. Barbu claims, "an individual act of perception, of memory, or imagination, a feeling, an attitude, or specific mental stru- ture can adquately be understood only within a surrounding social space." Problems of Historical Ps cholo , Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, I960, p. 27' The probTem I have with the analyses of these two authors is their lack of appreciation for individual innovations and disruptions within social systems. Both Bloor and Barbu would have us believe that the society must structurally change before individuals apprehension of reality changes. That the latter is dependent upon the former. I think a reversal of terms is the better approach and I attempt to explain why in the succeeding pages. 4R.G. Collingwood, ng_Idea pf_History, Oxford Clarendon Press, London, 1946, p. 280. 5See Hannah Arendt, Qp_Revolution, Viking Press, N.Y., 1963, for a discussion of the "workers councils" which spontaneously appeared in various urban social revolutions at a time of transitional instability between social systems. These councils strongly resembled tribal councils in structure. 6Miller, Op. Cit. p. 9. 7Ibid, p. 187. Miller however falls prey to the same attack that I used against Bloor and Barbu. That is, we should ask the question, How could mechanical pumps have come into existence at all? Miller later 97 98 states, correctly I believe, "Before an image can act as metaphor, it is necessary to identify some process to which it bears an obvious resem- blance." (p. 301). Now, if an image needs to bear an obvious resemblance to some process before it can act as a metaphor, then pumps could have been brought into existence from using image of a natural process of pumping, perhaps something as prototypic as waves bursting upon and through a space between rocks--a process Galen could have observed. Lack of mechanical pumps are not necessarily what prevented Galen from conceiving the heart as a pump. Man-made pumps had to be things before they could act as metaphors. But what acted as metaphor to enable man to construct pumps is the prior question. 8Ibid. p. 248-9. 9 p. 36. A.O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain pf_Being, Harper and Row, N.Y., 1950, 10Susanne Langer, Philosophy 1__p Egg Key. Mentor Books, New American Library, N.Y., 1951, p. 58. 1‘Ibid. p. 51. szbid. p. 53-54. 131 should point out here, and I will develop better later, that this dichotomy no longer holds. Since the mid-19th century most of the ad- vances in human thinking have come in the fusion of these two processes of the mind, or, better, by incorporating them into higher even more general functions. As Whitehead pointed out, the great invention of the 19th century was the technique of invention. That is, you start with the effect, work back to the present situation then create a chain of causation. However, it was Bertrand Russell who pointed out that the great invention of the 20th century was the technique of suspended judge- ment. We are thrown back on our powers of observation and perception, though, this time, the focus of attention is not nature but ourselves. 14Langer, Op. Cit., p. 61. 15Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenbe:g_Galaxy, Signet Books, New American Library, 1962, p. 13. 16A great change occured in Hellenic Greece. "Between Homer and Plato, the method of storage began to alter, as the information became alphabetized, and correspondingly the eye supplanted the ear as the chief organ employed for this purpose . . . 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 Presocra- tics themselves were essentially oral thinkers, prophets of the concrete linked by long habit to the past, and to forms of expression which were 99 also forms of experience, but they were trying to devise a vocabulary , and syntax fbr a new future, when thought should be expressed in cate- gories organized in a syntax suitable to abstract statement." Eric Havelock, Preface §p_Plato, Belnap Press, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Miss. 1963, p. VII and X. 17"One of Euclid's propositions states explicitly that incommensur- able quantities are not related to one another as numbers are. An abso- lute meaning was always associated with natural whole numbers which assured them, so to speak, of a sort of privileged being. But this conception lost its hold when the transition took place from the onto- logical to the purely methodological foundation of number . . . This action is not a matter of arbitrary subjective choice; it develops rather out of the objective problems of mathematical thinking itself, for it is the simple, fundamental operations of counting and computing, followed consistently and given general actual application, that lead to those complex systems of relations of which the new numbers are the expression." Ernst Cassirer, The Problem pf Knowledge, trans. William Woglom and Charles Hendel, Yale Univ. Press, 1950, p. 68. Cassirer here provides a good example of the internal processes of thought discovering new applications in the natural world. See p. 15. 18"This was made fully clear in Dedekind's deduction of irrational numbers, where they appear not so much as new forms which have some peculiar absolute nature, but rather a section we single out in the system of rational numbers, as cuts, by which this system is divided into classes A1 and A2, and in such a way that every number a] in the fbrmer is smaller than every a2 in the latter . . . But a firm founda- tion for irrational numbers can be found herein only if one accepts beforehand the basic presupposition . . . that in numbers we have to do not with symbols of things but with symbols of operations, and that even so-called "natural" numbers are nothing other than operational symbols. Then the advance beyond them would not mean a creation out of nothing but is explicable in the simplest way as a continuous extension of the realm Of operations that occurs when, to relations already at hand, "relations of relations" and so on are added. Ibid. pp. 68-69. 19J.M. Pullan remarks, "There was difficulty and confusion of thought associated with the notion of zero.“ The History pf_the Abacus, Frederick Praeger Pub., N.Y., 1969, p. 35. 20For Euclidian geometry, space must be a unity, ". . . whereas the recognition of non-Euclidian geometry would turn it into a heterogeneous plurality." Cassier, Op. Cit. p. 34. 2IRalf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict 1p.Industrial Society, Stanford Univ. Press, 1959, p. 123. 22"A form of challenge that has always faced cultures is the simple fact of a frontier or wall, on the other side of which exists another IOO kind of society. Mere existence side by side of any two forms of organi- zation generates a great deal of tension. Toynbee observes that the challenge of a civilization set side by side with a tribal society has over and over demonstrated that the simpler society finds its integral economy and institutions 'disintegrated by a rain of psychic energy generated by the civilization' of the more complex structure. When two societies exist side by side, the psychic challenge of the more complex one acts as an explosive release of energy in the simpler one." Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, Signet Books, New American Library, 1964, p. 174. 23This process also occurs in the human body when it is under great stress from disease or a wound. As Jonathon Miller states about an experiment in which the nerves in a patient's arm were severed to observe the healing process, "But the disease had not simply revealed lower function; it had somehow released them as well. " The Body in guestion p. 318. A related example is the 1941 paper, "Child Language phasia and Phonological Universals," by the great linguist Roman Jakobson. In that paper Jakobson, "sought to demonstrate that the same laws describe both the acquisition of language by the child and its dissolution in the adult suffering from brain damage." Jakobson states, "Development proceeds from an undifferentiated original condition to a greater differ- entiation and separation. New additons are superimposed Ln earlier ones and dissolution begins with the higher strata. " (Emphasis mineT) Howard Gardner, The Quest for Mind, Vintage Books, Random House, N. Y, 1974, pp. 198. 200. 24"The papacy in these two centuries gradually lost its position at the center of Christian society. It was not that there were no good or able popes, or that there were no theoreticians to define papal supremecy. but that the political, social, and intellectual climate offered other alternatives and that circumstances arose that made these alternatives seem plausible." Jeffrey Burton Russell, A Histor Lf Medieval Christi- anity, Thomas Crowell Pub., N.Y., 1968, p. 182. 25Marx is guilty of such a belief. "No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself only arises when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. " Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, trans. Tom Bottomore, McGraw-Hill, N. Y, 1956, p. 52. 26"The nature of the physical universe is such that the mere existence of a living organism, the mere fact that it is distinguishable from its environment, means that it is in a state of jeopardy." Miller, Op, Cit. p. 140. 101 27"The fact that the mechanisms responsible for maintaining life are virtually indistinguishable from the structures they support is one of the reasons why it took so long to identify their existence. Ibid. p. 140. 28See Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command, W.W. Norton & Co., N.Y., 1969, pp. 16-17; William Wallace, “Mechanics from Bradwardine to Galileo," Journal of_the History of Ideas, v. XXXII, #1, pp. 15-28. 29"The men who toiled in the workshops, in the arsenals, and in the studios, or those who had dropped their distain of practice, considered the Operations conducted on these premises [1. e. mechanical] a form of cognition. " Paolo Rossi, Philosophy, Technology and the Arts in the Early Modern Era, trans. Salvator Attanasio, Harper and Row, N. Y, 1970, p. X. 30$ee Carlo Cipolla, Clocks and Culture: 1300-1700, w.w. Norton and Co., N.Y., 1978. Such a synchronization can occur because mathematics stores motion, whether of moving objects or time, and translates one motion into another. Translation however, cannot occur without a "stan- dard" against which everything receives meaning and position within the conceptual framework. 313ee Richard Brown, Modernization, Hill and Wang, N. Y. ,1976; E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work- Discipline and Industrial Capitalism, Past and Present, #38, Dec. '67, p. 56- 97. 32E. J. Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization of the World Picture, trans. C. Dikshoorn, Oxford Clarendon Press,.1961, esp. p. 3 for definition of mechanization. 33See Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, Signet Books, New American Library, N. Y. 1962; H. J. Chaytor, From Script to Print, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1945; Elizabeth Eisenste1n, “The Impact of Print- ;ng on Western Society and Thought", Journal Modern History, vol. 40 , pp. -56. 34Peter Burke, Popular Culture jg_Early Modern Europe, Harper and Row, N.Y., 1968, p. 14. 351bid. p. 247. 36"Language had little or no political significance in the middle ages. No ruler dreamt of attempting to suppress one language in order to impose another upon a conquered race. " H. J. Chaytor, From Script to Print, p. 22. . . "It is Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the— Protestant Revolt: A New Appraoch to the Disruption of Western Christen- dom", Transition and Revolution, ed. Robert Kingdon, Burgess Publishing, Minneapolis, 1974, p. 235-70. 102 37Burke, Op. Cit. p. 254, Eisenstein, Ibid. p. 250. 38"The new presses, therefore, probably did not gradually make avail- able to low-born men what had previously been restricted to high-born. Instead, changes in mental habits and attitudes entailed by access to printed materials affected a wide social spectrum from the outset." "Basic changes in book format might well lead to changes in thought patterns." Eisenstein, "The Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought", Journal Modern History, pp. 5, ll. "Classical scholarship and historical research along with a variety of auxiliary disciplines became subject to continuous cognitive advance only after and not until the establishment of printing plants in the second half of the 15th century." Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance", Past and Present, Nov. 1969., PP. l9-89. "For print alone can secure the indispensable conditions of standardization the substitution of ' visual for acoustic word-memory." Chaytor, Op, Cit. p. 34. 39"The advent of printing entailed a very large cluster of changes that came in a relatively short span of time. In four or five decades, printers' workshops were established in urban centers throughout Europe . . New trades, such as that of compositor or type-founder were created; traditonal skills developed by metal workers, merchants and scholars were directed toward new ends. . . Intellectual trade routes were drastically reoriented in a manner that revolutionized traditional contacts between East and West--to the extent of outmoding previous reliance on personal intercourse and diminishing the impact of emigre movements . . . Artisans who learned to master letters did in fact become better rounded as well as more upwardly mobile and more conscious of their own worth." Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance.“ 40The military was the first sector of 15th century Italian society to standardize its production. This proved to be a fairly common occur- ance in the rest of Europe's societies also. Mechanization of men with machines accomplished through standardization of time was first visible in the Venice arsenal. As Fernand Braudel says, ". . . artillery and firearms quite transformed inter-state warfare, economic life, and the capitalist organization of arms production." Capitalism and Material Life: 1400-1800, trans. Miriam Kochan, Harper and Row, N.Y., l973, p. 293. And as G.N. Clark states, "Thus, the military promoted for several reasons standardization, the characteristic of mass production." Science and Social Welfare jg_thg_Agg.gf_Newton, Oxford Clarendon Press, l949, p. 52. 41Exactly the same process occured in Hellenic Greece not only with the introduction of the alphabet, but also with the introduction of coinage and individualized trade. See Karl Polanyi's "Aristotle Dis- covers the Economy," in K. Polanyi, C. Arensberg and H. Pearson, Trade and Market in the Early Empires, Henry Regnery Co., Hindsale, Ill., l97l, pp. 64-94. 103 42In the l3th and 14th centuries, " . . . the development of a mathe- matical basis for engineering was at first solely an intellectual enter- prise." Arnold Pacey, Ihg_Maze of_Ingenuity, Holmes and Meier Pub., N.Y., 1975,.p. l5. 431 will also show in the succeeding chapters that advances made in these four metaphorical systems can be correlated with general changes in sensory bias and preference, and with the awakening and nurturing of certain new personality structures. PART TWO INTRODUCTION In chapter four I asserted that any theory which attempts to illuminate the process of social advancement must try to account for any changes in forms of human consciousness that accompany and/or direct that process. Changes in forms of human consciousness are indicated by and manifested through changes in the four great "metaphorical systems“ of language, mathematics, money and art. Changes toward a more advanced system of social organization, that is, toward a geographically wider, more diverse and complex, yet efficiently integrated system ofhuman interaction, are preceeded by and built upon a new ideal of "social possibility". In addition, changes in the system of social relations can be correlated with changes in sensory bias and with changes in personality structure. The ideals of new social possibility take material shape and grow through institutional "objective correlatives" which direct human interaction into new patterns, and indicate new structures of thought and perception. This process is rarely, if ever, tranquil. The following chapters attempt to put historical flesh on this theoretical skeleton. Chapter five, entitled, "The Origins and Development of a Visual Bias in the Mind and Personality of Antiquity", outlines the changes which occured in the four great metaphorical systems between the invention of writing @ 3000 B.C., and the invention of coinage @ 700 B.C., 104 l05 and the changes these inventions, working swiftly and in tandem, wrought in the social relations and personality structure of Greece. Chapter six, titled, "The Process Reconstituted", discusses, in brief, changes in these four metaphorical systems between the fall of Rome, @ sixth-century A.D. and the end of the sixteenth-century, and the social structural and personality-structure changes which transformed the Latin West from a backward, divided, strife-ridden region, to a fairly homogeneous politico-economic entity known as "Europe".‘ Much emphasis will be placed upon the twelfth-century as the transition age because, it seems to me, the importation of the knowledge of the great Islamic civilization, and the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans, revolutionized the patterns of thought and perception of the "Europeans" and these mental changes were acted out in new social structures. This century marks the ascent of the Nest. During the period @1100-@1600, major new inventions occured in the four metaphorical systems which indicate and manifest a progressively visual-bias in the leaders of thought of the Nest. The further develop- ments in algebra toward a system of purely symbolic functions, the growth of infintesimals, irrationals and other mathematical forms, all reflect a radically new mode of apprehending "reality" mathematically. New forms of architecture and new techniques in painting, such as perspective, burst into the world of art. New currencies, extending over wide areas of land and peoples, were established and maintained. And last, but certainly not least, the invention of the printing press revolutionized the nature of knowledge. All these, and more, awoke the visual capacities of the Latinized mind and threw the peOples of "Europe" into a chaos of change and reordering. l06 It would be unfair to say, however, that once an advance into a more expansive and visual mode of thought has been accomplished, it has everything its own way, and there is nothing more for a society to do but keep advancing visually into higher, more general, levels of standardization. This is obviously toosimple a mind over matter approach. The natural environment and the thoughts and actions of non-visually biased peoples play a not insignificant role in the human drama. Plagues, famines, human vice and invasions have often knocked a smooth functioning, advanced social system to its knees with tremendous rapidity. The period from the sixth-century A.D. to the twelfth-century A.D. is a period especially rich in such calamities for the Latin world. And all these catastrophies seemed to occur with rather unfortunate timing for a people concerned with improving their lot. But these material forces act mainly to either blunt or speed-up the process of advance, and, at times, their blunting effect has served to generate a search for ways to either put them to work productively, or, at least, to minimize their awesome destructive power. They, them- selves, cannot present new structures of the mind or society to a people trying to advance. Thus, while a series of cold, rainy years may cause large crop failures, leading to attitudes of despair and hopelessness, and perhaps encouraging the spread of infectious diseases, of banditry and emigration, they cannot be said to destroy thought- patterns by themselves. LikewiSe, a period of good climate cannot be said to have built a new thought-pattern except insofar as it provides a favorable environment for advancement. Such a favorable time climatically was perhaps instrumental in helping Christian monks and 107 lay scholars from Europe to cross the Pyrannees into Spain and thus to the texts of Arab and Greek science. Climate, plagues, and famines only support or impede motivations toward advancement. They cannot be said to play anything but a supportive role one way or the other. One last point. The correlating of social advancement with the evolution toward a more visually oriented structure of thought and social arrangement, that is, toward a "Western" approach, should not be taken as an "iron law" of history, or even as a statement of faith that this is the only way all societies should proceed. It is simply a presentation of one process operating in all societies. A visual bias enables one to schematize objects and things comparatively quickly and efficiently. But it accomplishes this with a powerful homogenizing force. Greece and Western Europe developed the visual orientation far- ther than other peoples of their day. But, as I will show, their over- concern for rational, orderly life caused the other sensory functions to atrophy to the eventual detriment of their rationality of existence. THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF A VISUAL BIAS IN THE MIND AND PERSONALITY OF ANTIQUITY Language "Sound is the least controllable of all sense modalities, and it is this that is the medium of that most intricate of all evolutionary achievements, language."1 Language, or speech, is man's control of sound to create meaning. "Speech structures the abyss of mental space. It is an invisible archi- tecture of the human dark."2 The invention of speech proved a great advance over older forms of communication but it still restricted the area of communication to the limits of the projected human voice. Thus it has the same spacio-temporal limitations as do loud grunts or ges- tures. Oral cultures place heavy demands upon the memory to transmit past experiences of the community. In many oral societies there are indivi- duals who have the function of community memory. They are the community historians. The past for oral cultures is stored in and transmitted through verbal language itself.3 There is no past other than what can be remembered. There are no objective, material means for storing the experiences of the community. There is only the language in its immediacy. The personality structure of oral cultures is past-oriented, mythi- cal,4 centered on the well-being of the collectivity, and concerned with 108 109 problems which are specific and concrete.5 Oral cultures place heavy emphasis upon behavioral and attitudinal uniformity. Individuality, as we know it, is obscured. "Into human history around 3000 8.0. comes a curious and very re- markable practice. It is a transmutation of speech into little marks on stone or clay or papyrus (or pages) so that speech can be seen rather than just heard, and seen by anybody, not just those within earshot at the time."6 Writing breaks the corporate bonds of oral cultures and releases and develops the germ of individuality that lays dormant within. Ancient peoples thought writing was so powerful that it could only have been divinely inspired.7 The earliest forms of writing were pictures designed to represent visual events. However thislaborious nethod of writing proved to have its own limitations for communication across social and mental boundaries, 8 About 2000 B.C., more since each event had to have its own picture. abstract, less awkward systems, such as cuneiform, came into being with cuneiform becoming the universal language of the ancient world. Its universality derived, of course, from the power of the Babylonian empire, especially after Hammurabi.9 Cuneiform was a prototype of the phonetic alphabet. Though most kinds of cuneiform were syllabic, the Persians eventually developed a style of cuneiform which, instead of the usual 10 Such a reduction in the several hundred characters, had only 40. number of characters indicates a phonetic approach to language which "is the last, the most highly developed, the most convenient, and the most adaptable system of writing."H Such a progression from pictures of visual events to symbols of phonetic events reflects a changein human psychology. Phonetic writing, "is meant to tell a reader something 110 he does not know. But the closer writing is to . . . [pictures] . . . the more it is primarily a mnemonic device to release information which "12 The mind switches from a concern with the the reader already has. past, with what is known, to the present and future, to what is unknown. Likewise, there is a democratization of the social hierarchy that domi- nates oral societies, and in addition, a vibrant form of secularization begins to compete with traditional priestly domination. The frontiers of knowledge and social cohesion are extended. As David Diringer states, “. . . we can date the origin of the North Semitic alphabet, or of its prototype, . . . in the second quarter of the second millenium B.C. In other words, the great event occured probably in the Hyksos period13 which is now commonly dated l730-l580 B.C. There is no doubt that the political situation of the Near East in that period favoured the creation of a "revolutionary" writing, a script which we can properly term "demo- cratic" in distinction to the "theocratic" scripts of Egypt, Mesopotamia and China."14 Harold Innis, echoing Diringer, claims that in Phoenicia, "The necessities of an expanding maritime trade demanded a swift and concise method of recording transactions and the use of a simple shortened type of script. Commerce and the alphabet were inextricably interwoven, particularly when letters of the alphabet were used as numerals . . . . A flexible alphabet in contrast with cuneiform and hierogliphic or hieratic writing facilitated the crystalization of languages."15 Thus, the invention of writing, but especially the alphabet, the most convenient and adaptable system of writing, enabled its users to extend the frontiers of group identity beyond the confines of inherent oral limitations at the same time the traditional social basis for group cohesion was being destroyed. Now, one had only to possess the ability 111 to read to be a part of "the group." But the new concept of groupness was:un:defined as a total committment to a social form of organization. No! The new form of group identity was functional. One could read Greek, for example, but one did not have to pledge allegience to the Greek polis. As Julian Jaynes asserts, "It is the communication system that limits the size of the group."16 But this extension of group-identity based on functional ability does not just extend horizontally through space, but also vertically through time. "The art of writing gives permancence to man's knowledge."17 Thus, later generations now have access to societies of the past and can enter them and be a part of their life. The "growth" of knowledge, the "future" of knowledge can be realized for the first time. Thus, the new invention of writing which broke the mental bonds of past-oriented oral societies, also gave a new life to the past by allowing the re- covery of all written materials. This is the cleaving together and cleaving apart effect of any innovation. "Alphabetization is the basic invention for the storage and recovery of information; it is fully comparable in significance to the Dewey decimal system."18 This ability to store and recover vast amounts of information about any subject whatever lead to the necessity for a system of standardization to manage (i.e. classify) its vastness, and streamline its recovery. A new sensory bias began to develop, especially in Hellenic Greece, and a new mental structure developed to use (i.e. translate) information effectively. This new mental structure was given over to a concern with abstractions, general concepts, and systems of logic. 50, "Between Homer and Plato, the method of storage began to alter, as the information became alphabetized, and correspondingly the 112 eye supplanted the ear as the chief organ employed for the purpose. The complete results of literacy did not supervene in Greece until the usher- ing in of the Hellenistic age, when conceptual thought achieved as it were fluency, and its vocabulary became more or less standardized."19 Hellenic Greece completed the process started by the Presocratics who had been "trying to devise a vocabulary and syntax for a new future, when thought should be expressed in categories organized in a syntax suitable to abstract statement."20 The supplanting of the eye for the ear is the work of the phonetic alphabet, and only the phonetic alphabet. No other system of writing is so purely visual. It accomplishes this great feat of translation by de- noting each sound with one sign only. That is,through a one to one cor- respondence between audible sound and visible sign. One to one corres- pondence is the foundation for any system of translation. Phonetic writing corresponds to speech because it is the graphic representation of the voice. Its signs don't represent ideas but sounds or groups of 2] _Therein lies its great power, adaptability, convenience, and sounds. mental accessibility. But there is another dimension to the changing mental structure which evolved with the devel0pment of the alphabet. That is, the awakening and nurturing of a comparatively dormant side of the brain: the left side. "One of the most obvious facts about the human cerebrum is that it it double. One hemisphere is structurally the gross mirror image of the other. That is, the other side is not only structurally the same, but is working just as hard . . . the informational capacity of one is just as great as the other, or put differently, the other side is not only working just as hard but also just as intricately."22 113 But though the hemispheres work just as hard, they do not tend to work on the same things. The strengths of the right hemisphere are organizational ability and reaction to novel responses. It is in the right hemisphere that we get the blinding insights or the instantaneous organization of heretofore unorganized or differently organized material. Gestalt exercises 23 and spatial relations, especially the intuitive grasp of new relations based not upon logical induction but upon ana- logical apprehension, are carried out in the right hemisphere. "The right hemisphere . . . sees parts as having a meaning only within a context; it looks at wholes. While the left, or dominant hemisphere24 . . looks at parts themselves."25 "Singing and melody are primarily right hemisphere activities. And since poetry in antiquity was sung rather than spoken, it was perhaps largely a right hemisphere function." Likewise, "we also hear and appre- ciate music with our right hemispheres."26 In addition,dreams are pro- ducts of right hemispheric functions. All of these activities of the right hemisphere are very visible in non-literate, especially non-phonetically literate, cultures. Oral cultures are strongly poetic rather than discursive. They are melodic 27 But and rhythmic, and are quick to grasp varying spacial relations. they are less adept at linear thought,28 cause and effect perceptions, and strict logically segmental reasoning which are primarily products of the left hemisphere where our language faculties are found. The left hemisphere is our hemisphere of analysis, of breaking down a thing into component parts. Thus, the right is implicated with spatial relations, with visual mapping, with proportions of all kinds, that is with mathematics. The 114 left is concerned with analysis, logic, sequencing of thought and lan- guage.29 But there is always instantaneous communication between the two spheres and we use one to give the other new information to process.30 It is the Greeks who began the flowering of logical thought and single plane space. But this switch from right to left did not occur immedi- ately. With the development of cursive writings all formerly pictoral writings became more abstract. Pictures began to lose their uniqueness and specificity and whole groups of pictures, and thus ideas and sounds, were fused into a single cursive symbol. From the beginning all systems 3] but with the movement toward of writing moved from right to left, abstract cursive symbols there grew a practice known as boustrophedan in which the direction was alternatively left to right then right to left, and a few scripts such as the middle and later Minoan32 went entirely left to right. The Greeks followed the same path. "Like the Semitic alphabetic scripts, the earliest Greek script was written right to left, a style which was later superseded by the boustrophedan direc- tion of writing, that is, alternately from right to left and from left to right, as the ox draws the plough. In both styles, the writing sometimes began from the bottom and went upwards. There are, however, extant some early inscriptions written from left to right. After 500 B.C. Greek writing invariably proceeded from left to right and from top to bottom."33 Thus, at the time that Greek thought was becoming more abstract, their writing was reversing its direction, and more broadly, as writing moved from pictures to phonetics, from representational pictures of visual events to visual symbols of acoustical events, the brain's left 115 side was awakened in that "integration" of sight with sound. The Greeks reversed the hemispherical dominance in the brain. But this integration of sight with sound proved fertile for both sides of the Greek brain. For some major developments were occuring in mathematics at exactly the same time. Mathematics From ancient times through the Greeks, mathematics, or numbers, were developed along a path which roughly approximates the path that language followed. That is, numbers began as an extension of the sense 34 of touch, moved through sound and eventually came to be thought of, prototypically at least, as visual. The earliest beginnings of the systematic use of numbers can be .035 traced back to the Sumerians and Egyptians of about 3500 B It is interesting to recall that writing first appeared only about 500 years 36 later in approximately the same region of the world. The development of mathematics and language often occur near simultaneously. For the Sumero-Babylonian cultures, writing and mathematics seemed to have fed one another. Harold Innis suggests that writing was a 37 Sumerian invention which took its lead from mathematics. Later, however, "Sumerian written texts brought an appreciation of abstract "38 symbols such as became the basis for symbolic algebra. Indeed, Innis goes on to state that, "The development of writing, mathematics, the standardization of weights and measures, and adjustments of the 39 calendar were a part of Babylon's urban revolution" which occured about 1700 B.C. 116 It was these twin innovations in language and mathematics which gave the Babylonians control of the commercial and cognitive worlds. Though writing and numbers are comparatively abstract, their immediate effects are in the practical world.40 The intellectual shock-waves released by the Babylonians were felt far into the future. William Ivins believes that the mathematical inno- vations of Thales and Pythagoras were probably borrowed from the Babylonians who had been using them as far back as l7OO B.C. But the Greeks rejected, or did not know about, Babylonian algebra, which was not only invented early in Babylonian history, as Innis pointed out, but which had a "numerical place value“ notation which is the crux of all modern systems of mathematics, and which indicates the Babylonians had an awareness of zero that the Greeks did not.41 This lack of algebraic development is apparent in the form of thought and the style of art in Greece, as I will explain later. Mathematics in ancient Egypt was purely empirical and thus embedded within tactility. The Egyptians had no number theory, and calculated with neither written symbols nor the abacus as the Greeks and Romans did.42 In light of this general lack of abstract ability, it is useful to note that the Egyptians never developed a phonetic alphabet. As Walter Ong states, "The large scale accumulation of exact knowledge which makes possible elaborate and dispassionate causal analyses and sharp abstract categorization depends absolutely on writing."43 The Egyptians, never- theless, had a geometry before the Greeks did, but it was a purely practical one. Without number theory, there are no methods available to develop abstract groupings through purely mental calculations with figures. Egypt did influence Greek mathematics.44 For Euclid worked in Egypt.45 117 Somewhere along the line, either from Babylon or Phoenicia, the notion of group number appeared. This represents an important advance in number theory. The operation of counting eventually consolidated the concrete and heterogeneous notions of plurality that characterize primitive number relations and made numbers into a homogeneous abstract concept. Only with this kind of mathematical leap can one use, say, one finger to represent ten discrete objects, or numerals. This is perhaps the early intuition of the problem of universals which was to entertain the European Middle Ages for centuries. With group number the process of calculation is streamlined.46 Like writing, the changes in mathematics had a profound influence on notions of space and time [language more concerned with time, mathe- matics with space though both are implicated with space and time] in the different cultures.47 With number, time and space can be reckoned numerically and not just according to natural rhythms. That is, mathe- matical order can be found to exist in the natural world. Obviously, advanced notions of precision were not undertaken by either the Baby- lonians or Egyptians, but both "divided the days and nights into twelve hours each -- the Babylonians were the first -- but paid little attention 48 to the hour of any event." And in Sumeria, "mathematics and time reckoning facilitated the development of meteorology and the establish- ment of the sexagesimal system."49 Mathematics overlays the natural order with a mathematical order. But mathematical orders differ and thus space and time conceptions differ. Not only do different geometries come into being, and different systems of physics spawn but the relationship between nature and humanity differs with each system. 118 "In Western thought, space is empty and to be occupied with matter; time is empty and to be filled with activity. In both primitive and civilized non-Western cultures, on the other hand, free space and time have being and integrity. It was this conception of nothingness as somethingness that enabled the philosophers of India to perceive the integrity of non-being, to name the free space and give us the zero."50 The Greeks had no formal algebra, no zero, no "free space" after Euclid, and no "free time" after Aristotle.5] They were progressively more abstract in their thinking, and thus more in love with generalities than concrete particulars. They were progressively more visual in their orientation rather than aural or tactile, and thus developed logical systems and deductive rules to structure thought. They considered con- templation a divine activity and manual work unbecoming anything but a slave. But this progression started out from a bed of tactile experiences. The Greek upper classes developed the visual bias to its highest degree in antiquity, but in doing so they "lost touch", though not literally, with their other senses. Let us "see" how Greek mathematics developed and what this development meant for the Greek, and the human, mental structure. The sixth century B.C. has long been considered a great fertile century in human history. It is in this century that a number of authors place the "birth" of scientific thought from the womb of the Aegean.52 Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus are all well-known names of the time. But among the great minds of the time was the eponymous Phythagoras who first "discovered" the relation between numbers and sound. More specifically, Phythagoras thought numbers were an integral 119 part of the universe; that the universe was constructed on mathematical principles. Thus, the famous Pythagorean dictum, "All is number." This first known integration of numbers with music starting "from the acoustical discoveries about the lengths of vibrating strings"53 marks a profound abstraction of numbers from their tactile matrix. Numbers became magical, harmonious with each other, and acoustic space became conscious. This did not mean that tactile space, the "uncon- scious" space of oral peoples, and the space of most Greeks, was obliter- ated. It meant only that a new space was available not to be experienced, but to be consciously apprehended through the vehicle of improved mathe- matics. Once the mathematics to apprehend, thus store and translate auditory space, was available, all previous forms of tactile space were infinitely enriched but greatly splintered. This is the nature of inno- vation. Acoustical space is of a larger magnitude and differention than tactilespace. Greek art remained basically tactile for the whole life of Grecian culture as I will show later. This new discovery of acoustic space, derived from the integration of mathematics and music, however was soon confronted by the overpowering force of the alphabet. The alphabet is the greatest vehicle available to translate all experience into visual experience. For the phonetic alpha- bet is the visualization of sound. Just at the time that Pythagoras was discovering the "music of the spheres".the alphabet was consolidating its hold in Greece thereby changing the personality structure of its users and giving them a visual bias. The acoustical space given con- scious form by the Pythagoreans proved no match for the stronger visual space of the alphabet. But again, this capitulation didn't mean that acoustical space was lost. It had been given conscious form. It could 120 always be consciously recovered. Indeed, it continually operated through- out the entire life of Greece, as did tactile space. But visual space, being more abstract and homogeneous and thus more differentiating, be- came dominant. By approximately 500 B.C. visual space and its running mate linear 54 The philosopher time were a part of the thinking of "educated" Greeks. Democritus, according to Erwin SchrBdinger, "states explicitly that in empty space there is no above and below, in front or behind, no direction 55 priviledged." For Democritus, empty space is isotropic. This is a classic definition of visual space, and it is this perception of space that provided the foundation for Euclidian geometry.56 Though the Greeks gave the world the first systematic expression of theoretical geometry they did nothing in algebra. Why they did nothing is a particularly thorny question since the Greeks were ac- quainted with Babylonian algebraic techniques. It has been asserted that the Greek mathematicians need only have continued this tradition "to achieve in 300 B.C. what was not accomplished until long afterwards by the Arabs and sixteenth-century Italians."57 The answer for this lack of algebra lies, I believe, in the spacial- izing of sound that occurs with writing and especially the phonetic alpha- bet. This spacialization of sound had strong effects upon the structuring of thought, because it changed the conception of reality from a dynamic to a static mold. The Greeks went highly visual after the impact of the alphabet. "By the time writing has the hold it achieved among the ancient Greeks, something like a vision of a neutral world is largely arrived at, even though the universe is still shot through with animism, as in Aristotle's living celestial spheres."58 121 The phonetic alphabet is overwhelmingly visually biased and with it "man began to link visual perception to verbalization to a degree pre- 59 The development of visual space and linear time viosly unknown." through the spacialization of sound leads its users to think in sharp clear-cut categories and to sequence events in linear causality. It also signals the appearance of "literal meaning."60 Writing by freezing speech gives rise to reflection and meditation; to abstract thought. It allows the mind to "draw off" qualities and principles from the matrix of passing events and construct an alterna- tive reality to the given events of human life. This alternative reality is comparatively immobile, and it is this immobility that gives the illu- 6] This is the geometry of Euclid. sion of ontological immuteability. Algebra is the mathematics of motion, but geometry is the mathe- matics of rest. But this dichotomy is, in reality, false. For algebra lies latent within geometry, and geometry is embedded in algebra. Never- theless, from the full scale introduction of the alphabet into Greece about 700 B.C. the balance shifted in favor of vision over all the senses. With this shift, the tactile-aural world of the Greeks began to break down. In the end, the Euclidian eye dominated the Pythagorean ear. The world of visual space is a world of discrete objects placed within a neutral space of single-planed homogeneity. The structure of 62 Each theorum is Euclid's thought reflects these spacial assumptions. discrete, each axiom is an abstract statement about processes that would go on should space be single-planed, flat, and neutral. The geometry of Euclid is static and visual. It deals not with physical movement, but with intellectual movement. Euclid'slines, points and planes only exist within his static visual space. The Greeks had no symbolism for 122 movement. They knew “algebraic formulae and equations only in geometric interpretation, since as a rule there was no number to fit in with the formula."63 And as the "Greeks had no algebraical symbols or methods they could only solve such equations as lent themselves to solution by Greek geometrical methods, and which were restricted to lines, areas, and volumes, and in which three was the highest power or dimension."64 It is a well-known fact that Greek mathematicians developed no mathematical symbol system but would present their arguments in words. This also indicates the strong visual bias of their abstract perception. And this bias is in large part an explanation for their lack of techno- logical advancement,65 and why their mathematics remained largely non- functional for the natural world. Greek mathematicians lived in an abstract visually oriented world of clear cut dimensions and static objects of thought. Euclidian geometry is an alphabet of this abstract world. But this abstract awareness of a world of discrete intellectual objects, while its definitions and proofs were developed independently of the natural worhi,rebounded into that world and transformed it into a world of discrete objects which reflected their new mathematical essence. As Spengler pointed out, "The most valuable thing in the Classical mathematics is its proposition that number is the essence of all things perceptible to the senses."66 Thus, the philosophical founda- tion of natural science was laid in these classical times, and it was this foundation which was to be recovered and implemented to construct the industrial, mechanized complex of activities of today. "Classical number is the thought-process dealing not with spatial relations but with visibly limitable and tangible units, and it follows 123 naturally and necessarily that the classical knows only the 'natural' . numbers."67 68 For the Greeks "that which could not be drawn was not number." So, for the Greek mind only three dimensions were real, that is, were accountable. Measurement in this sense in entirely corporeal and concerned only with the here and now. Euclidian geometry is two- dimensional visual geometry, but it is within a three-dimensional world. Thus, for the Greeks, the third dimension of space is wholly abstract, and the fourth dimension of time is unreal except insofar as it can be grasped spacially, abstractly. "The Classical mathematician knows only what he sees and grasps. Where definite and defining visibility -- the domain of his thought-~ceases, his science comes to an end."69 Entry into the world of the third dimension of space as a concrete phenomenon, and not as an abstract perception which defines and limits the development of mathematical symbology, requires the development of algebra -- the mathematics of movement; the mathematics of logical trans- formation, of pure relations. The Greek literary-philosophical mind could accomplish this, but the mathematics to do this escaped them. They would not accept the reality of zero, of irrationals, of infinites- imals.70 Because of this rejection of algebraic ideas71 they were unable to have a mathematics of transformation, of motion, and were unable to put their mathematics to functional use beyond classification and measurement of fixed magnitudes and proportions.72 In addition, because of this perceptual limitation, the Greek mathematics of discrete arith- metical numbers could not employ the philosophical idea of infinity.73 Perhaps the Greek theorists had trapped themselves within the limitations of their mathematics. They could not accept algebraic 124 notions of transformation indicated by irrational numbers because they would have destroyed their world view. For "the idea of irrational 74 With number separates the notion of number from that of magnitude? irrational numbers, the notion of number becomes disembodied, so to speak, from the physical world and becomes a purely intellectual object. For the Greeks only space was abstract, numbers were tactile and/or aural. Irrational numbers were incommensurable with number; an impiety against the gods. Irrationals were an impossibilty within Greek theory. Numbers for the Greeks were, in a sense, only concerned with measure- able objects at the end of their development when they had reached wholeness. How a thing developed could be observed, but the transfor- mational stages it underwent to reach wholeness were beyond mathematical reckoning. This world view held sway for centuries in the West. It was not until the f0urteenth century that "the transformation of a series of discrete numbers into a continuum challenged not merely the classical notion of number but the Classical world-idea itself."75 Thus, the Greeks could not accept irrationakssince irrationals went against what appeared to their senses.76 But, paradoxically, it was the two most famous representatives of Greek thought, Plato and Aristotle, who provided some of the main sources for the development of algebra in the post-12th century European world. In their theories of number they were often at odds as we will see.77 Platonic theory took its lead, and to some extent repeated in the realm of ideas the Pythagorean arithmological ordering of nature. For Plato, though, numbers were divided into the "arithmetic" and the "logic" The arithmetic was the kind, the form (eidos) of number, while the logic (logos) was the method of counting, or the art of calculation. The logistic was for practical affairs but the eidos was pure thought. 125 However, Plato also postulated a theoretical logistic and a practical arithmetic. It was these last two postulates of Plato that the neo- Platonists disregarded. Mathematics for the neo-Platonists was divided only into the theoretical arithmetic and practical logistic. Plato's theoretical logistic dealt with purely intellectual realities. It was a theory of counting numbers as pure numbers, as numbers which are independent of physical objects or practical affairs. It was the theory of how counting could be done at all. The big obstacles for Plato's theoretical logistic were fractions. Plato, himself, remained tied to the unbreakable, innate wholeness of numbers. For his "Ideas" were pure geometrical forms and thus, like his purely intellectual numbers, were indivisible. There could be no frac- tioning of the units of calculation. Plato skirted fractions by claiming that every fraction became an indivisible unit in its own right and that calculation was carried out in these units.78 When a thing was divided it had simply multiplied itself, or better, one kind of I'l" had multi- plied itself with the calculation to be carried out according to that "l". In theoretical logistic, like theoretical arithmetic, the units were indivisible. Division was really multiplication of a number's "l-ness." Apples, for example, could be divided any number of times to yield parts of itself, but thoughts (eidos) were "pure units" and could never be divided. 79 by Thought for Plato was basically ”account-giving and counting" way of dialectic. Numbers were divided oppositionally into odd and even and they embodied different qualities, though both shared the essence of "l-ness." This kind of dialectical triad marks all of Plato's thought and it led him to the brink of algebraic theory. 126 For Plato asserted that because the odd and even were dialectically opposite they could be equated with being and non-being. But since odd and even share "l—ness" as an essential quality, so then being and non- being share this essence. Thus, being brings with itself its own non- being. True being then as the union of being with non-being led Plato to assert that non-being is a kind of being.80 Plato, while maintaining a rigid static thought world, stepped up to the threshold of movement but did not cross over. Plato's numbers remained non-functional. If Plato worked upwards inductively, Aristotle worked downwards deductively. Aristotle knew that these pure units of Platonic thought formed a homogenous medium of abstract thought since all Plato's numbers were indivisible and each number in its "definiteness" was part of and bound up within a kind, a class, of related numbers, the first two classes being odd and even. Aristotle also recognized that this abstract purity of number was a product of reduction, via thought, of objects to quality. Aristotle saw Plato's philosophy as a neutralizing, homogenizing force which acted, like Euclidian geometry would later, metonymically. Aristotle, on the other hand, saw odd and even, or any other ontological division of numbers, as merely qualities of number. Thus, "6" was not the same as 2 x 3, but could only be "once 6", of which 2 x 3 was a quality. The supreme quality of any number -- its definiteness -- was what it indicated; e.g. "6". 2 x 3 = 6 was a "composite quality" of "6". The being of every number was what it was "once". Thus, Aristotle located the essence of a number or object within it, while Plato located essence alongside, in abstractio. It is Aristotle's philosophy that provides the philoso- phical justification for "applied science", since, for him, objects themselves provide the genesis for thought about them. The units of 127 thought, and especially of number, are not self-subsisting noetic objects, but constitute the "measuring character" of an infinite number of objects.81 The Greeks then, provide a new way of perceiving and mathematically mapping the objective world. They discovered and developed the notion that "the scope of arithmetic is the scope of the metaphor of material object. As long as we can see things as objects to which the operations of ordering and sorting can be imaginatively applied then we can number and count arithmetically."82 The Greeks gave human awareness a new kind of object, the intellectual object, distinct from material natural ob- jects. They also developed the mathematics of visual two-dimensional flat space within which these flat homogeneou5‘ intellectual objects -- called "ideas" -- can be placed. Their mathematics like their alphabet set the world on a visual foundation. "Mathematical number contains in its very essence the notion of a mechanical demarcation, number being in that respect akin to word, which, in the very fact of its comprising and denoting, fences off world- impressions . . . So also numbers are something that mark off and cap- ture. nature-impressions, and it is by means of names and numbers that the human understanding obtains power over the world. In the last analysis, the number-language of a mathematic and the grammar of a tongue are structurally alike."83 Money The study of developments in mathematics, language, and as I will show, art, indicate- changes in individual psychology and thought more 128 so than social changes, though of course these metaphorical systems also have their social outlets and initiate profound changes in human organi- zation. With money, however, we are able to trace the pattern of change stemming from sensory switch in more detail. For money expresses, "a universal relationship between the individual and society, and his con- "84 Money then is a kind of lubricant in sociological fidence in society. and psychological interactions between individuals in a society and between societies. When two societies meet on unequal economic grounds, their conceptions of and uses for money may differ considerablygas the fourteenth and fifteenth-century Europeans and Africans discovered. The transition from a barter, or natural, economy to a money econ- omy indicates a deeper transition from one way of life to another, one mode of thought to another. Such a transition signifies an organic change in social relations and a operationalizing of more abstract and general thought patterns. "Money in the end comes to reflect value re- lationships."85 But money as we know it is a late comer upon the stage of history. Money is a concept, a language for equating disparate objects. Money is not necessarily the same thing as coinage, or any physical object whatsoever. "No object is money per se, and any object in the appro- priate field can function as money. In truth, money is a system of 86 "Hem symbols similar to language, writing or weights and measures." a formal angle, modern money, in contrast to primitive money, offers a striking resemblance to both language and writing. They all possess a unified grammar. All three are organized in an elaborate code of rules concerning the correct way of employing the symbols -- and general rules applicable to all the symbols. Archaic society knows not 'all-purpose' money."87 129 What kind of money did "archaic" societies know? In Hammurabi's Babylon, ". . . an elaborate system of barter was practiced which was based on the function of silver as money of account; the use of barley as a means of payment; and the Simultaneous employment of a number of staples . . . as a means of exchange."88 Silver as the money of account was used to tally-up the amount of wealth in the empire. But barley was the "wealth" and all objects of exchange took their value from the amount of barley available. Silver itself received its value from barley since, l shekel of silver always 89 Thus, should the amount of barley increase, equaled l gur of barley. the value of silver would increase since the weight-amount of l gur would increase. One shekel could buy more barley. The fixed 1:1 ratio was maintained no matter what the amount of barley.90 What a society considers its "wealth" is what it uses in situations where there is only a one-way exchange, such as the payment of debts, rent, or taxes. In the Babylon of @ l7OO B.C., there was no preferred means of exchange so there was no universal money. So, also, there was no coined money and the hoarding of precious metals for purposes of accounting. In all "archaic? societies no one thing is "money." There are small sets of 9] Traditional, that is non-market. objects that can be, and are, money. societies have no concept of exchanging goods through valuation via a fixed standard which is neither good, which in fact is no object at all. That is, there is little transfer of value other than immediate use value. In such staple-finance societies, the "wealth" of the society does not represent, as money does, pure potential wealth. It represents the actual wealth of the society at any given time. The difference between non-market and market societies is in their use of money. Barter economies separately institutionalize different 130 money uses based on use-value. Market societies unify them into one institution based on exchange-value -- though this unification never occurs all at once. What started this unification, this integration,‘ this homogenization? "Disequilibrium created by the character of technological change 92 in communication strikes at the heart of the economic system." Thus, perhaps it is the alphabet which provides the key to the homogenization process.93 By providing the technology to visualize space and time, it 94 at the same homogenizes, integrates and unifies the conceptual world time that it causes "disequilibrium in the socio-economic world. Its immediate effectsthough are practical. [See above page and below foot note #40]. The Phoenicians, the great merchant seamen of the old world, made use of the alphabet in their commercial ventures, and it may reasonably be presumed that they taught this knowledge to those societies with whom they traded -- such as their Greek contemporaries. It is the alphabet, the standardization of letters with sound, the spatializing of sound, which provides the conceptual impetus and basis for standardi- zing numbers{-- which store and translate quantity and movement -- and thence to a "standard of value." The ability to store and translate quantity is a commercial necessity, and translation of one quantity into another requires a standard against which quantities can be com- pared. With the appearance of standards of measure and quantity the foundation is laid for the construction of a system of trade relations based primarily on the exchange-value rather than use-value of goods.95 And exchange-value trading is always more rapid in time and broader in space than use-value trading. 131 This speed-up in movement of maritime trade not only demanded, as Innis pointed out, "a swift and concise method of recording transactions," but also, because of its increased inter-societal network, required a system of standardized weights and measures to enable the tradesmen to compare their goods against a standard of value. Within one society when the ratio of exchangeable goods to the standard of value becomes fixed money as we know it comes into being.96 This notion of fixity, which as we know is a visual notion, is critical. For the fixed ratio, or proportion, is a centralizing, homogenizing mental tour de force which creates, in one its outward manifestations, 97 Thus,"money as a standard in fact lies behind n98 a true market economy. money as a medium of exchange, whether within a single society or between societies. As far back as one hundred years ago, Rodbertus realized that the transition from a "natural" to a "money" economy was more than the technical matter of the substitution of money for barter. The mone- tarized economy requires an entirely different social structure. The introduction of money reorganizes social structures and human relation- 99 ships. Thus, it might be that "trade created money rather than money trade,"100 but the introduction of money indicates and establishes new forms and patterns of trade by reorganizing disparate trading patterns into a market-system based on an inter-societal standard of value. The regular exchange of goods over great distances implies that trade opera- tions are performed within a homogeneous monetary, or at least exchange- value space. Money is pure potential wealth. It is stored wealth.10] But it is stored for purposes of transport across social-economic frontiers to be translated into the goods of another society. Money 132 bridges the trade gap between staple-financed societies. That is why it represents such a great advancement over non-money staple-finance economies. As long as the market, the best economic soil for the money tree, remains homogeneous money rules. For money ceaselessly works to homogenize all exchange-relations, all commodities. It binds and en- cases all objects within itself until all that can be seen is money 102 n103 itself. “What nature made distinct, the market makes homogeneous, and money strengthens and maintains that homogenity. Money as stored wealth is indirect exchange. That is, it only expands its wealth in movement. The outer body of the concept "money" is called currency. Since money can be embodied in any object, any object can poten- tially function as money. But the evolution of the idea of currency shows the switch from the ability of money to store wealth, which it derives from the mathematical ability to store quantity, to the ability of money to translate one kind of wealth into another, which it gains from the ability of mathematics to translate one kind of movement into another. Thus, currency is the movement of wealth, of money, in its objective form and this objective form of money changes with the speed and distance of trade. Currency derives its value in relation to the standard of value of a society. But that standard of value which has its own objective form is only currency under the special circumstances of one way exchange. For example, in Babylon, the standard of value was barley, but the currency was those staples used as a means of exchange. Only with pay- ment of taxes, or rent, or debts (if the debt was not arranged to be "worked-off" through labor) was the objective form of the standard of value used in exchange.104 133 The objective form of standards of value shows a progression from merely important but countable items, such as oxen, slaves, barley etc., to measureable items like strings of conch shells, cakes of tea or salt, 105 The introduction of weight, first applied to the important to weight. measureable items, lead to the use of metals as the standards of value. Metals are non-perishable, or at least comparatively so, and thus last longer than perishable cakes of tea and salt. This is an important quality for currency to possess. For currency is validated through its movement through a society. This movement of currency is the objective expression of the "universal relationship between the individual and society" and the speed of currency movement is the expression of the individuals confidence in society. Now it becomes clear why metals must be introduced. For with the speed-up in trade in ancient times an inter-societal currency had to be developed. That currency had to be not only light and accessible, but also had to last a good number of years without significant alteration in its appearance. Metals fit the bill perfectly. But standardization is the key step in all stages of the evolution of currency, and even- tually metals were standardized by weight into coins.106 Coinage ultimately displace all other forms of "money." This transition to coinage marks the beginnings of a full-blown market economy, with its primacy of exchange-value trade relations. For coinage has no use-value only exchange-value; better, its use- value lies entirely in its exchange-value, in its powers of translation. The Lydian invention of coinage in the 7th century B.C. eventually upset all traditional commercial relations.107 But the first application of coinage was not radical but age-worn. Coins were first issued by governments and seemed to be used for 134 administrative purposes such as paying mercanaries, facilitating public works and paying the salaries of state employees, rather than for economic trade purposes. Coins were merely substituted for older forms of money, and asked to do the same things as those older forms.108 The first stage in the life of any innovation, as I pointed out in the last chapter, is its application to old purposes.109 That is,the innovation increases the speed and efficiency of those purposes. But this creates, if not stopped early, an unmanageable imbalance in the system of relations governing that society. The radical nature of inno- vations is usually not recognized until too late to save the old society. Other societies who import, or are intruded by, the innovations of other societies feel its radical effects far more quickly. In both instances however, the society is changed to "mirror" the structure of the innovation. This is what happened in 5th century B.C. Greece when coinage hit them. However, prior to the wholesale reconstruction of 5th century B.C. Grecian society via coinage, there occured great changes in 6th century B.C. Ionia. "The unprecedented element in the general life of sixth- centry Ionia. the chief stimulus to the prosperity which provided lei- sure for the atomistic philosophers, was the invention of coinage: the age of barter was ended."”0 The Ionian revolution was syptomatic of a great acceleration of commerce in the entire Aegean during the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. It was this commercial revolution that disrupted the underdeveloped country of Greece.]]] And the commercial revolution in Greece, occuring only about one hundred years after the appearance of the Greek alphabet, culminated a long process not only of social changes but also of mental changes which the appearance and evolution of money facilitated. 135 "Once money as a means of exchange is established in society, the practice of payment spreads far and wide,n112 The establishing of money as a means of exchange indicates that payment can take on the possibility of "individual" material gain through exchange. That is, "money is now "113 This is a means of payment because it is a means of exchange. another separation of the individual from society. Individuality, self- interest, as a driving force in trade and exchange relations is institu- ted. This is a new kind of trade relation.” For with self-interest comes individual risk on the "open market."”4 The profit mgtjxg_is born. Profit in marketless societies depends upon the regular turnover, or exchange, of goods, not upon fluctuating price differentialswhich characterize the money economy. As long as the turnover of goods is regular there is profit in business. With no losses to be incurred, because of no price differentials, there is no threat of insolvency. Compared to the relative instability of the market, the most im- portant facet of marketless business practices is the subsumption of the economy to the dictates of the state. Profits in marketless societies are profits only of the state. The state's profits measure the wealth of the community as a single entity which the state dispenses to its constituents. But the invention of money, and especially as it appears in coinage, completely undermines this relationship. Coinage places the wealth and power of society into the hands of the individual.”5 The development of the money economy which works through and ex- tends the market structure, severs the economy from its politico-social matrix. The establishment of a market economy constructs an autonomous economic-structure which is autonomous by virtue of its internal regulation. 136 But, internal regulation can only be done through individuals who are aware of their individuality. It cannot be done any other way. "The reign of money created gradually a new mentality so aptly expressed in Alcaeus' words "money makes the man."116 The birth and development of the individualized mind was part of a process of complex social and cultural changes which from the sixth, through the fourth centures B.C., shook the foundations of Greek society. The rise of the money economy gave commerce dominance over agriculture and upset the traditional agrarian class structure of Greece. In addi- tion, the famous Greek city state, based upon the autonomy of the indi- vidual "citizen", brought about the passage of Draconian laws which "minimized the collective responsibility for criminal conduct."“7 Traditional blood fueds were broken by the laws of Solan (@638-0558 B.C.)118 and Solon's new economic reforms "favoured the position of the Greek merchant by hastening the transition from a barter to a money economy."n9 Money, then, like writing and mathematics, operated to identify and nurture any impulses toward individuation that may have been circulating through traditional communal societies. "This kind of psycho-historical development affected man's mental organization as a whole: a new person- ]20 The new man was more self-centered than his ality structure emerged." communal forebearers. But this new man was not universally welcomed. Aristotle, for one, found the changes entirely unacceptable, and in setting down his objections to these social changes, Aristotle leaves us a graphic picture of the changing order of 4th century B.C. Greec. In the sixth and fifth centures B.C., Greece was economically back- ward compared to her Mesopotamian contemporaries. By the fourth century however, her merchants and traders had initiated new business practices which better fit the developing "world" market. PLEASE NOTE: Page 137 is lacking in number only. No text is missing. Filmed as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. 138 Aristotle correctly saw these new business practices as growing out of the urge to make money which he, along with most other "leisured"Greeks, considered unnatural and subversive of the economic and moral order of society.121 1 The natural situation, argued Aristotle, was one where community not individual interests were paramount. That is.a status relationship should govern internal economic relations. This is, of course, the kind of economy to be found in state controlled staple-finance economies. Aristotle, sensing the passing of the old order, reacts to the new with moral indignation. According to Aristotelian economic theory, community self-sufficiency and the just price were the two most important pillars upholding economic interactions. Community members were linked together by the bond of good will. Apart from this good will there could be no community. Thus, for Aristotle, anyone operating outside the "community" was a barbarian, 122 an "idiot." The self-sufficiency of the entire community was "natural" and any practice that helped maintain community self-sufficiency, that 123 Thus, certain kinds of state is the "community spirit," was natural. controlled trade, and definitely slavery, were natural practices. Trade which one did for oneself was unnatural. The just price derives from the demands of community good will. Thus, if one had a surplus, the just price would endeavor to direct one to give his surplus to those less fortunate. This is not charity for charity did not exist. Charity is individual. The benifits of leisured activity also enters into Aristotle's theory. Leisured activity should be devoted to the polis, and slavery is necessary for some persons to be leisured. Thus, even the slaves 139 contribute to the self-sufficiency of the community by allowing others to govern. Slavery, then, is natural. For Aristotle, institutionally mediated relations between indivi- duals should be the focus of eConomic thought and practice, not the production and distribution of goods, except insofar as production and distribution can be natural activities. But there is another reason for Aristotle's polemic: one which is perhaps of greater importance for understanding why he wrote as he did. In Grecian society prior to Aristotle, individual commercial activity was restricted to low-class persons known as "hucksters." By Aristotle's time this practice had become an activity of "respectable citizenry" also. Through this transition, formerly disreputable practices had been elevated to respectability and it is this change in the activities ‘24 Aristotle be- of the upper classes that sparks Aristotle's pique. lieves Greek society is debasing itself. But this was nearly inevitable after coinage developed. For with the increased numbers of Greek mer- chants came a speed-up in the movement of currency. Potential wealth must move to be actualized. It can't long remain still. What brought Athens down? Obviously a number of factors, but chief among them must be a slowdown in the movement of currency. Such a slow- down can be the result of too rapid an increase in the speed of currency transfer which ends with inflation and currency devaluation. This would also result in hoarding. Or, such a slowdown might occur from a great 125 Per- decrease in the numbers of people through wars and or disease. haps too much wealth was expended on imported luxury goods to satisfy the leisured. This would result in a flight of currency out of Greece. All these and many more contributed. But the fact remains, the introduction 140 of money had a revolutionary effect not only upon the structure of the Greek mind, but also upon the structure of Greek society. Art The Greeks of Homer's time, asserts William Ivins in his book Art and Geometry, were a "tactile-minded" people. By the time of Plato, Aristotle, and especially Euclid, they had become more visual-minded. This transition, resulting from the invasion of visual technologies -- alphabet and coinage mostly -- indicated important changes in the Greeks apprehension of form. For tactile forms are "understood“ with the hand, while visual forms are ”understood" by the eye. "Tactually, things exist in a series of heres in space, but where there are no things, space even though "empty", continues to exist, because the exploring hand knows it is in space even when it is in contact with nothing. The eye, contrariwise, can only see things, and where there are no things there is nothing, not even empty space, for that cannot be seen . . . The hand, moving among the things it feels, is always literally "here", and while it has three-dimensional coordinates it has no point of view and in consequence no vanishing point; the eye, having two-dimensional coordinates has a point of view and a vanishing point, and it sees "there" where it is not. The result is that visually things are not located in an independently existing space, but that space, rather, is a quality or relationship of things and has no existence without them."127 This basically tactile bias enabled the Greeks to excel in the plastic arts of sculpture and architecture, but to manifest little facility in the visual arts such as painting. But it wasn't until the 141 intrusion of a strong visual technology that the Greek tactile genius was released. For the visual sense and the tactile sense are most at 128 odds, and their clash around 500 B.C. generated great anxiety, ten- sion and great art.129 The intrusion of innovation at first always improves the speed, efficiency and power of some old activites and proclivities. It gives them a temporary new lease on life, at the same time it operates to displace the old forms these activities had. It is a well established notion that the brilliance and originality, the power and precision of Greek art was gone by the time of Euclid.130 "The ancient Greeks apparently made no opposition or distinction between imagination and imitation in the representational arts."131 That is to say, the art-object was not a conscious attempt to reproduce a natural object. The art-object was the natural object. Heaven was the mirror-image of earth and this l:l fixed correlation is the artistic equivalent to the l:l fixed correlation of shekels to barley in the economic system of Babylon. The created figure, then, was not the work of an individual artist. For the ancient Greeks, the created figure was the result of a super- natural force working through them;132 The ability to make a distinction between imagination and imitation requires sense of personal individuality. This did not begin to develop in Greece until after the introduction of the alphabet and coinage. Thus, even by the sixth century B.C. the famous philosopher Heraclitus says, "Those who speak with a sound mind must hold fast to what is common to all."133 A commonality of purpose under the direction of a "common-mind"is highly tactile. For touch is really the genesis, and thus the original 142 integration, of all the other senses, which develop out of it. Within the world of touch there is room enough for individual activity since every person is really but a constituent part of the single "common d."134 But within the tactile world, as stated earlier, there is no min personal point of view, no vanishing point to delimit a "personal space." The notion of community was the social ground of Greek life and it per- vaded all their thought.135 The entry of the visual bias of the alpha- bet, coinage and mathematics, with their emphasis upon individuality, personality, self-centeredness etc., and their two-dimensional spacial- izations evoked the communal ground of Greece to awareness, at the same time that the Greeks became aware of the assumptions and principles of ordering that characterized the new. Most of classic Greek art reflects this new conscious attempt to objectify previously unconscious tactile assumptions. A good example is Greek architecture. The Greeks built their temples, monuments, statues etc. where there was room for them. They gave I'no thought to vistas or approaches, and no thought that any one erection could get in the way of or make "136 They were almost oblivious to visual any difference in another. ordering which requires that objects be "placed" in a space of fixed proportions. In tactile space, objects generate their own space, in visual space objects are arranged in space by an "observer." A tactile-minded individual has not abstracted himself from his socio-psychological matrix and thus is not a detached observer. Para- doxically, as always, we do not know this about tactile-minded people until visuality has appeared and differentiated itself from tactility. Aristically this results in a lack of perspective which is the projec- tion of a three-dimensional space, that is tactile-space, upon a 143 two-dimensional plane. Two-dimensional space is visual or pictoral space. Three-dimensional space is only observable from within two- dimensional spacial assumptions. That is why Greek mathematicians after Euclid had such problems with the third dimension. For one operating within two-dimensional spacial assumptions, the third dimension is only abstract. But for one within three-dimensional space, conceiving the world in two-dimensional visual terms is a work of near impossible abstraction. For visual space is a levelling, a compressing, of the depth of the third-dimension to nothing. TWO-dimensional ordering, by democratizing and levelling depth, upsets all the assumptions of the time-less, static, status-concerned world of tactility, and provides the basic conceptual foundation for privacy and the individual point of view. The art of the tactile world is concerned with what Ivins calls the "composite group photograph." It is not concerned with individuality. Thus, it appears to visually biased people to be abstract, bloodless ‘37 For the Greeks, each art-object existed in its own right 138 and fixed. since it was an emanation of the group mind. Even in painting the Greeks manifested their tactile bias. Since they did not know the principle of perspective and vanishing point, figures in Greek paintings are of near equal size, though they may be painted on different levels. Ivins claims this is a "pictorial device not to indicate visual depth but to save the tactile-awareness, i.e., to represent things as they are tactually known."139 Prior to Euclid the only art-form in Greece to be structured more or less along visual assumptions was the literary-philosophical.140 144 This is not surprising given the highly visual alphabetic technology employed. All the other arts however, reeled under the impact of this technology, and this creative tension reflecting the clash of competing perceptual worlds, a competion which evoked all previous oral and tactile perceptual assumptions to conscious awareness for objectification in material form, drove the artists of Greece to new heigths- in their expression of beauty. Personality and Society It has been the work of this chapter to show that changes in the four great metaphorical systems of language, mathematics, money and art generate and indicate great changes in personality and social structure. This change in personality structure has tended toward a more abstract, differentiated and individuated sense of personal identity, paralleling the transition in sensory dominance from tactile through auditory to visual. The change in social structure has tended toward more abstract, homogeneous arrangement of social interactions via the development of technologies of communication that enable their users to extend their influence across great distances. The extension of a social order is the overlaying of one sensory bias upon the others. This has the initial effect of generating a sense of individuality that destroys previous communal relations by emphasizing certain attitudinal and behavioral traits that had lain more or less undeveloped within those communal relations. The process is completed with the construction of "community" on a larger scale than before to counter-act the anarchy of personal individuality. 145 The alphabet initiated the separation of the individual from the community by encouraging independent thought and reflection. The alpha- bet is visual technology and embodies a highly abstract translation of 14] Once thought and speech could be written down and sound into sight. preserved, the notion of reality changed. Previously reality was only what was spoken about. Reality was only present in on-going speech and thus was immediate and verbal. Reality now became silent and extended through time not only beyond the present speech but even beyond the life-span of the speaker: This is what has been mistakenly called the birth of consciousness. But really it is only the birth of visual con- sciousness from the "womb" of the previous auditory consciousness.142 Visual consciousness emphasizes different aspects, different opera- tional capacities, of the human mind than other forms of consciousness. Touch, smell, taste and hearing "support to a higher degree than the eye the individual's belief in the fluid character of the world of 143 objects," whereas the eye is the supreme differentiator. "The notions of dimension, of form, of movement and even that of quantita- 144 These tive variation have their roots in a visualized perception." notions were also applied to the interior world of human psychology and thought. Application of highly differentiating visual assumptions to human consciousness creates awareness of what Freud called the ego. With the awakening of the ego comes the dawn of number sense and language sense, and with these comes "an almost metaphysical feeling of anxiety and awe regarding the deeper meaning of measuring and counting, drawing and 145 form." This metaphysical feeling of anxiety and awe is none other than the "sense of discontinuity and self-alienation."146 146 With writing came the mapping in material, preservable form of the structure of thought. Writing made the interior world of thought visible, and thus observable. Writing delineates the subjective consciousness. It froze thought allowing for thought itself to be analyzed, and even- tually created an art-form: literature. Man became conscious of him- self as creator. He became not only like his gods in that he has an operating yet unobservable interiority but he discovered will and voli- tion.147 Prior to the advent of the alphabet there is little or no awareness of individual subjective interiority acting self-volitionally. All events are products of external forces which are localized in the ex- terior world. As Ivins stated, there is no distinction between imagi- nation and imitation. But by 1000 B.C., according to Julian Jaynes, there arose the first sense of a distinct "I". But this "I" was not thought to have an "innate" substance different from the exterior. That is, the distinct "I" was empty and needed to be filled with external promptings which could be localized and differentiated in the various ‘48 Each member of the body bodily organs to determine their message. had a name and a special role to play. But the body itself, as a unified entity controlled by a distinct, individuated I, had not yet 149 This is the work of the Greeks- appeared. The Greeks not only developed the individual sense of I more than the other peoples of the Aegean, but also, they developed the first thought-system designed to try and manage individuality: rationality, the conscious ordering of social relations according to visual assump- tions. This system of rationality was a response to the effects of the 150 introduction of coinage in seventh century B.C. Individuality appeared first, rationality was the new community. 147 As I tried to show in the section on money, the introduction of coinage helped lead to the breakdown of traditional Greek society and to the development of a new personality structure. The chief virtue of that new personality was fame.]51 _ When morality ceased to be dependent upon the external "voice" of the gods and was internalized in the I, the pursuit of fame ceased being a vice and became a virtue. Initiative, perhaps the spilling-over of initiative into criminal acts, lost some of its oral-communal taboos. When morality, left to the individual, proved a great destructive force, rational laws which could weigh right and wrong on the scales of written justice were thought the only available strategy to manage the growing social anarchy. It is no accident that Solon , with his rational laws, appeared to quiet Athenian unrest at precisely the point of near social breakdown.152 Rationality, as the external regulation of social relations, is the introduction of more strongly visual assumptions of order upon the pre- vious innovative visual assumptions that disrupted agrarian society. Rationality is the standardization of social relations. Compared to it, the individual quest for fame, though itself built upon visual, alpha- betic, democratic assumptions, and which evoked the assumptions of the oral world, appears irrational. Around fifth-century B.C., Zevedei Barbu claims, the "age of anxiety" began in Greece. With it came all those cross-purposeful attitudes and behaviors that reflect a society in upheaval. After rampant individu- ality came the rigorous rationalization of social relations to control the self-interested ego. Rationality strove to reinstitute awareness of the necessity for group-identity. But because it was visually—based, it could only assert this notion of group-identity in the abstract. 148 Because it was visually based it could only encourage individuality. But individuality was the very phenomenon it sought to control. Thus, paradoxically, rationality, as a system of thought to manage social relations, could only be effective by denying, to some extent, the rationality of individual rationality].53 And the denial of individual rationality was done in the name of the threat of individual rationality ‘ to social rationality. All the senses become united in the abstract, in visual space and Ideal form, at the expense of their expression in society. Or better, the other senses were allowed expression only in rational form, that is, to a degree and in modes dicated by rationality. The famous Greek enlightenment of the fifth through the third cen- turies B.C. was the supreme expression in antiquity of this sense of rationality. Plato's Republic, or Aristotle's "just price" and "self- sufficient community" are examples of this mode of thought upon social calculations. The unification of all previous sensory stages under the dominance of sight represents the final development, the terminal state, of a specific culturefisevolution. This is the time of the standardization of thought, feeling and social relations in the name of order, stability and preservation. But this unification, usually called "enlightenment," is accomplished at the expense of denying the innate structure of other sensory modes of apprehension, now considered irrational. It is accom- plished at the cost of further social and cognitive flexibility. It puts that society "out of touch" with other realities, hence.other societies and other modes of thought and feeling. But as Freud has explained to us, should our repressed urges be denied their natural outlets, they will break out in perverted form.154 149 The enlightened in Greek society could not wish away their feared "irra- tional" impulses and desires. Their rational order had become so rigid that any disruption in its walled-city of social geometry would bring the whole rational edifice down. When this happened, as it eventually does with all over-visual, over-rational, over-calculating societies, "all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put it together again. " FOOTNOTES 1Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton- -Mifflin, Boston, 1977, p. 97. 2Edmund Carpenter, They Became What They Beheld, Ballantine Books, N.Y., 1970 - no pagination. 3"Language is a storage system for the collective experience of the tribe. Every time a speaker plays back that language, he releases a whole charge of ancient perceptions and memories. This involves him in the reality of the whole tribe." Ibid. 4See "Time and Oral Tradition with Special Reference to East Nigeria", G.I. Jones, Journal African Histor , #6, p. 153- 160; “Time, Work- Discipline and Industrial Capitalism", E. P. Thompson, Past and Present, #38, December 1967, p. 56-97; "Ideas of Space and Time in the Conception of Primitive ggéigion", Waldemar Bogoras, American Anthropologist, v. 27, #2, p. 205- 5"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 . . ." Eric Havelock, Preface to Plato, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass. , 1963, p. x. Also "In an oral culture the mnemonic procedures which we today ordinarily associate with verse are not only part of ordinary extrapoetic verbalization but actually determine thought structures as well." Walter J. Ong, S.J., The Presence Qf_§h§_Word, Simon & Shuster, N.Y., 1970, p.30. 6Jaynes, Op. Cit. p. 68. Edmund Carpenter states, "Writing turned a spotlight on the high, dim Sierras of speech; writing was the visuali- zation of acoustic space. It lit up the dark." They Became What They Beheld. Acoustic space is space without set boundaries, unlike visual space which has near immuteable boundaries. This remark of Carpenter's will be developed later. It is a key to personality change. As Zevedei Barbu states, ". . . a specific mental structure can adequately be under- stood only within a surrounding social space." Problems of Historical Psychology, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1960, p. 2. 7David Diringer, The Alphabet, Philosophical Library, N.Y., l948, p. 17. Exactly the same claim was made for print several thousand years 150 151 later. "Luther, himself, described printing as, "God's highest and extremist act of grace, whereby the business of the Gospel is driven fOrward." "The Advent of Printing and the Protestant Revolt: A New Approach to the Disruption of Western Christendom," P. 236; Elizabeth Eisenstein from Transition and Revolution, ed. Robert Kingdon, Burgess Publishing, Minneapolis, 1974, p. 235-270. 8A good example is Egyptian hieroglyphics. 9Jaynes argues that writing in HammurabiHsMesopotamia, ". . . was a new method of civil direction . . . Without it such a unification of Mesopotamia could not have been accomplished." (p. 178) see also Diringer, The Alphabet p. 37. Moreover, as will be shown later, Hammurabi, or perhaps better, in Mesopotamia during Hammurabis time, important new events happened in mathematics and money. 10Diringer, Ibid. p. 37. 1]Ibid. p. 37. Also, "It is a fact that the crudest forms of writing, both ancient and modern, are non-alphabetical" (p. 21) Also between pictures and phonetics lie pictographs or ideograms which are, "graphs of an idea, and therefore not pictures of abstract things or nouns, . . . but actions, shorthand images of natural processes and operations." 12Jaynes, Op. Cit. p. 176. 13Immanuel Velikovsky believes the Hyksos never existed, but were invented by scholars of ancient history to explain the downfall of Egypt. See Velikovsky's Ages jn_Chaos. 14Diringer, Op. Cit. p. 214. 15Harold Innis, Empire and Communication, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1950, p. 52. 16Jaynes, Op. Cit. p. 128. 17Diringer, p. 17. John Hope Franklin says about the use of Arabic by illiterate oral Africans, "it made possible the reduction of oral literature to permanent form." See From Slaverng_Freedom, Vintage Books, Random House, N.Y., 1969, p. 37. 18Lynn White, Machina §x_ggg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1968, p. 109. That White likens the alphabet to a mathematical system backs up Innis statement in footnote 15 above, and is, I think, an accu- rate appraisal of the structural identity of words and numbers. More on this in the section on mathematics in Greece, and on personality in Greece. 153 19Eric Havelock, Preface tg_Plato, p. vii. Ong states, "Writing, and most particularly the alphabet, shifts the balance of the senses away from the aural to the visual, favoring a new kind of personality structure." The Presence of thg_Word p. 8. 20Ibid. p. x. 21See The Alphabet p. 36. 22Stuart Dimond, The Double Brain, Williams and Wilkins Comp., Baltimore, 1972, p. V. This also lends support to White's and Innis contention that language and mathematics are structurally alike. As I will show, langauge proceeds from the left hemisphere of the brain, . mathematics from the right, though of course there is never exclusivity. 23Jaynes, p. 118. Also, ". . . tests indicate the presence in the right hemisphere of a special capacity for things like insight, mental association and ideation. This is largely based on the ability of the right hemisphere to select items indicated by a particular instruction or associated with a particular stimulus." Dimond, The Double Brain p. 195. 241 think Jaynes is elevating a cultural, that is a Western, bias to level of neurological law. As Stuart Dimond states, "It could be supposed that the left is superior in most important respects and therefore the dominant or controlling hemisphere. But much of this superiority rests in a specialization for language. . . while the right possesses its own specialities too." The Double Brain p. 161. Also on p. 166, Dimond states, "The cerebral hemispheres appear to be equipotential in respect of language involvement during the early years." This certainly fOllows the thesis that evolution moves from the undifferentiated to the differ- entiated. . 25Jaynes. p. 119. 26Ibid. p. 366-7. 27See "Ideas of Space and Time in the Conception of Primitive Religion" listed in ft. nt. # 4 above. 28“The visualizing of chronological sequences is unknown to oral societies." Marshall McLuhan, Ih§_GutenbergGalaxy, Signet Books, New American Library, N.Y., 1969, p. 72. The anthropologist Dorothy Lee asserts that in the world of the Trobriand Islander, ". . . there is an absence of axiomatic lineal connection between events and objects. . . In our own culture, the line is so basic, that we take it for granted, as given in reality." But, "it is because they find value in pattern that the Trobrianders act according to nonlineal pattern; not because they cannot perceive lineality." Freedom and Culture, Prentice-Hall, N.Y., 1959 p. 110, p. 113. 154 29See Ernst Cassirer's Language and Myth for a good comparison between wholistic mythology and analytic, discursive language as the twin poles of human consciousness. 30"It commonly happens that known specializations of the right come to be expressed through speech. What happens, for example, if a person should be required to use speech to describe a map or a picture? The right hemisphere is implicated with spatial analysis, and the left with the control of speech." Dimond, The Double Brain p. 175. Also on p. 186, Dimond states, ". . . that one hemisphere, either the right or the left, can form the vehicle through which the other can express specialized capacities.“ This may account for Aristotle's famous state- ment in his Politics, "The whole preceeding time during which anything moves toward its form, it is under the opposite form." 31 Diringer. p. 67. 32Ibid. p. 75. 33Ibid. P. 453. Another indication of the mirror-image of numbers and letters, which I will discuss in later chapters is the fact that until the 12th century in Europe, subtraction and addition were always carried out left to right. Then after the importation of Arabic mathe- matics, addition and subtraction had their boustrophedan periods until the 16th century, when the right to left direction became universal. See "From Abacus to Algorism: Theory and Practice in Medieval Arith- methic", Gillian R. Evans, British Journal For the History of_Science, vol. 10, #35 1977, p. 121, and John U. Nef, The Cultura oundations of Industrial Society, Cambridge University Press, London, 1958, p. 17. MATHEMATICS 34"Number is an extension and separation of our most intimate and interrelating activity, our sense of touch." Marshall McLuhan, Under- standing Media, Sigmet Books, New American Library, N.Y. 1964, p. 105. 35Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Language of_Science, Doubleday Anchor Book, 1954, p. 22. 36Although Walter Ong. using the figures established by David Diringer in his book Writing, claims cuneiform scripts of Sumerian type, can be dated to 3500 B.C. The Presence 9f_th§_Word, p. 36. 37Innis, Empire and Communication, p. 30. 38Ibid. p. 37. 155 39Ibid. p. 41. 40Walter Ong states, "When the alphabet developed out of earlier scripts, it, too, at first served practical social and economic purposes almost exclusively." The Presence gf_thg_Word p. 54. See also Innis quote which appeared in full on p. 3 above. He states there, "Commerce and the alphabet were inextricably interwoven. . ." For mathematical innovations in Hanmurabi's Mesopotamia @ 1700 B.C. see Karl Polanyi’s"The Semantics of Money Uses" in Verbi-Voco-Visual Explorations ed. Marshall McLuhan, Something Else Press, N1Y., 1967, p. 19-29. 4William Ivins, Art and Geometry, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1946, p. 61 footnote at bottom of page. 42J.M. Pullan, The History of_the Abacus, Frederick A. Praeger, N.Y., 1969 p. 1-28. 43Ong, Presence of thg_Word p. 203. Ong goes a little far, I believe, when he states, "Astronomy, mathematics, physics, grammer, logic, meta- physics, and all other abstract knowledges remain mere potentials of the human mind until some use can be made of script." (p. 203) Oral peoples have all or most of these, but not in the form we are used to presenting them. This cultural bias is simply a bias. It cannot be an admission that what doesn't conform to a recognizable pattern is therfore pattern- less. Ong is right, however, when he states, "Oral cultures have great difficulty fbrmulating abstractions because they are not the kind of knowledge they can readily recall." (p. 203) 44Although Tobias Dantzig argues that the Greeks got both their alphabet and their numeration from the Phoenicians. If this is the case, they did not also learn the number theory, which was Babylonian, that built Phoenician arithmetic. The Phoenicians were primarily traders not urbanites, and perhaps were not inclined to develop the theoretical side of numbers. Or, maybe the Greeks of earlier times could not grasp the intellectual developments of the Babylonians and Phoenicians but were able to grasp the practical uses of numerals. Such an accurance happened in 12th Century Europe. 45Ivins, Art and Geometry p. 61. 46Calculate comes from the Latin calculus which means pebble. This again shows the early affinity numbers have with tactility. 47"There is not, and cannot be, number as such. There are several number worlds as there are several cultures.1 Oswald Spengler, The " Decline of the West vol. 1, Alfred Knopf Pubk, N.Y., 1926 p. 59 _TWe know that—thE_number of possible geometries is large, and that any of them as a form of mathematics is only true in virtue of its form." Ivins, Art and Geometry p. 13. 156 48Sebastian de Grazia, Qf_Time, Work and Leisure, Twentieth Century Fund, N.Y., 1962, p. 310. 49Innis, Empire and Communication p. 40. 50Dorothy Lee, Freedom and Culture p. 55. 51Free time was leisure, and leisure "is a state or condition." It was "freedom from the necessity of being occupied." de Grazia, Of Time Work and Leisure p. 13-14. In Aristotle's definition of leisure-“time has no role." (p. 13) de Grazia believes the Romans finally put an end to this notion of leisure as "un-work", though it was crumbling since Plato's time. 525. J. Dijksterhuis says science begins with Thales of Miletus about 600 B.C. See The Mechanization of_the World Picture, trans. C. Dikshoorn, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1961, p. 4. Erwin Schrodinger includes Thales with his other founding fathers Anaximander and Anaximenes, all of whom were 6th century B.C. Ionians. Schrodinger singles these men out because he believes they were the first to think "that the world around them was something that could be understood, if only one took the trouble to observe it properly." Nature and the Greeks, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1954, p. 55. 53Schrodinger, p. 37. 54Sebastian de Grazia correctly notes that in any culture the idea of time as a line "seldom gained popularity outside the ruling, edu- cated, technical or priestly classes." gf_Time,Work and Leisure p. 318. This is true even today in almost every country of the world. The difference between visual space and time, and the spaces and times appre- hended by other senses, especially hearing, is the foundation of the false dichotomy of high and low culture, or elite and popular culture. Each sense gives a different Weltanschauung. 55Schrodinger, p. 75. 56Schrodinger feels Euclid may have obtained his ideas of space directly from Democritus, who was a contemporary of Plato. William Ivins however believes that tactile and visual intuitions of space were in competition in Greece. Euclid, Ivins believes, was visually oriented, but he states "The knowledge of perspective attributed to Anaxagoras and Democretus is a modern myth." (p. 40). If Euclid recieved his ideas of space from a tactile-minded Democritus he translated those tactile in- tuitions into visual mathematics. This is certainly plausible. 575.0. Dijksterhuis, The Merchanization of the World Picture, p. 50-51. 157 58Ong, The Presence of_the Word, p. 224. The animism' Ong refers to is the product of oral-auraT—Eultures. Havelock in Preface tg_P1ato states (p. 171), "The psychology of oral memorization and oral record required the content of what is memorized to be a set of doings." The oral world requires all phenomena to be in continual motion either physically or through the movement of sound in speech about them. See p. 1-3 of the Prologue of this work. 59Ong. p. 50. 60Ibid. p. 47. On p. 45 Ong states, "It appears no accident that formal logic was invented in an alphabetic culture." 61"No geometry is absolutely derived from experience or given by it, but it can be so chosen that it will be best suited to certain problems set by experience and will solve them in the simplest way." Ernst Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, p. 47. The problem Euclid solved was the geometry of pure v1sua space. "For the Greeks and those who followed in their tradition the Euclidian axioms and postu- lates were final truths about space." Ivins, Art and Geometry, p. 65. 62"Each of Eaclid's theorums stands by itself, for it is very rare to find an individual theorum that is deduced from a more general pro- position." Ivins, Art and Geometry, p. 48. Descriptive theorums-- those that deal with position not measuremént-hardly exist in Euclid. Most of Euclid's theorums are metrical, which deal with measurement. This lack of positional awareness indicates lack of awareness of per- spective leading to the vanishing point of zero. And we know the Greeks had no zero. 63 Schrodinger, p. 39. 64Ivins. p. 64. 65Other reasons advanced center around the large numbers of slaves available to do the work in Greece. This is undoubtedly a powerful argument, as is the argument of the abhorrence of manual work by Greek nobility, and their elevation of the gospel of leisure, discussed earlier, to the rank of supreme virtue. I am not trying in the least to minimize, or refute, these correct arguments. I am merely adding another to all of them. The reasons the Greeks did not advance technologically is for all reasons stated above. 66919511133(_JjjligWest, vol. 1. p. 63. 671bid. p. 64. 68Ibid. p. 66. 158 69Ibid. p. 82. 70Schr3dinger believes "Democritus had deep insight into the meaning and into the difficulties of infintesimals." Nature and the Greeks, p. 83. It was Democritus who showed that the volume of a cone was 1/3 the product of its base and height. 7.lThat the Greeks knew of them is proven. But why they rejected them is unproven. 72"The nexus of magnitudes is called proportion, that of relations is comprised in the notion of function. . . All proportion assumes the constancy, all transformation the variablity of the constituents." Spengler, The Decline g: the_West, vol. 1. p. 84. 73". . . neither Euclid nor any of his Greek successors made any use in proof of the idea of infinity . . . Intuitionally, . . .[infinity] . . . belongs in the field of vision." Ivins, Art and Geometry, p. 50-1. The Greek philosophers intuited it but the mathematicians couldn't use it. 74 Spengler, p. 64. 751bid. p. 66. 76East Indian mathematicians, who had embedded in their belief sys- tem the endless repetition of birth, death and rebirth, invented the zero, the foundation for all mathematics of movement. Z7For the following discussion I am relying almost entirely on Jacob Kleins magnificant work, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin 9f Algebra, trans. Eva Brann, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1968. 78One, (1), was not a number for the Greeks, it was the genesis, the mother-number, of all numbers. Thus, every number after 1 carried 1 in its essence, but each number was a different kind of 1. 79 Klein, p. 76. 80This is of course exactly the same reasoning that lead Indian philosophers to invent zero. 81Thus, it is that Plato's static philosophy is dominant in Europe for the 12th century, but Aristotles "practical-minded" philosophy takes the lead in the 13th. The great mathematical innovations of the 14th century are the result of dissatisfaction with Aristotle's static notions 0 space. 159 82David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery, p. 92. 83Spengler, p. 56-7. This structural identity between mathematics and language grows out of the structural mirror-image across the hemis- pheres of the brain. MONEY 84Pierne Vilar, A History of 0on and Money: 1450-1920, trans. Judith White,Foundations of History Library, NLB, London, 1976, p. 23. 85Ibid. p. 24. 86"The Semantics of Money-Uses", Karl Polanyi. from Verbi-Voco-Visual Explorations, ed. Marshall McLuhan, Something Else Press, N.Y., 1967, p. 19. Spengler believes there is an intimate relationship between the "form-language" of a mathematic and that of major "cognate arts" of which he includes money. See Decline gf;thg_West, vol. 1, p. 61. 87Polanyi, "The Semantics of Money Uses", p. 21. The modern notion of money is one where its "functional existence absorbs, so to say, its material existence. Being a transient and objective reflex of the prices of commodities, it serves only a symbol of itself, and is therefore capable of being replaced by a token." Vilar, p. 14. 88Polanyi, "The Semantics of Money-Uses" p. 28. Much of Greek society began in Babylon. 89Polanyi, "The Semantics of Money-Uses" p. 27. I will stick close to Polanyis analysis of Babylon in the next few succeeding paragaphs. 90This is obviously the level of "signs" discussed in Chapter 4. This kind of "pre-market" thinking also existed in Ugarit--see "Market- less Trading in Hammurabi's Time", K. Polanyi p. 12-26 of Trade agg_ Market jg_the Early Empires. 9'“Accordingiy, while in modern society the unification of the various uses of money happened on the basis of its exchange-use, in early communities we find the different money-uses institutionalized separately of one another." Polanyi, p. 22. 92 . . . . . Harold Innis, Chang1ng Concepts gf_T1me, Un1vers1ty of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1952 p. O . 93Recall the North Semitic alphabet, from which all other alphabets descend, was invented @ 1600 B.C. 160 94"When the alphabet commits the verbal and conceptual worlds, themselves already ordered superbly in their own right, to the quiescent and obedient order of space, it imputes to language and thought an addi- tional consistency of which preliterate persons have no inkling." Ong, The Presence 9f.the_Word p. 45. 95See Philip Grierson, The Origins gf Money, Athlone Press, Univ. of London Press, London, 1977. 96Grierson, p. 17. 97" . . the generalized application of monetary values to commodi- ties could scarcely have come about before the appearance of market economies. Grierson,p .19. 98Ibid. p. 17-18. 99See "The Secular Debate on Economic Primitivism" by Harry Pearson in Trade and Market in the Early Empires, ed. K. Polanyi, C. Arensberg and H. Pearson, Henry _Regnery Co. , Chicago, 1957, p. 3- 11. 100 Vilar, p. 27. 10lLike writing is stored knowledge, mathematics is stored quantity and art is stored cultural perception of form. 102"Since money does not disclose what has been transformed into it, everything, whether a commodity or not, is convertible into gold. . . Just as all the qualitative differences between commodities are effaced in money, so money on its side, a radical leveller, effaces all distinc- tion." Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, Everyman Library, N.Y., 1972, p. 112- 113. It should be remembered that when the alphabet was first invented @ l6OO B.C. it too acted as a leveller. Diringer says the phonetic alpha- bet was "a script which we can properly term "democratic." 103"The Economy as Instituted Process" Karl Polanyi, from Trade ggg_ Market jg_the Early Empires, p. 243-270, quote from p. 261. 104In Homeric Greece the standard of value was oxen. Clearly, oxen do not make good currency. see Grierson, p. 16. 105Grierson, The Origins gf_Money. 106Numismatic research places the invention of coinage in the 3rd quarter of the 7th century B.C. in Lydia. see Grierson for references. 161 107"The invention of money in Asia Minor during the seventh century B.C. provided a basic mutation in the history of commerce because it offered an abstract measure of the value of goods." Lynn White, Machina ex Deo, MIT Press, 1968, p. 152. White is a little confused here. By money _he means coinage. Money is a language with set rules of syntax for arriving at precise measurements of value. Coinage is one of number of material forms of money. Coinage is the "most abstract" measure of money because in itself, it has little use-value. Credit relations are even more abstract. As far as the time needed for money to replace staples as the dominant system of finance, Karl Polanyi states, "For only well after the introduction of coined money in Greece some six cen- turies before our era, did money-finance begin to supersede staple- finance in these empires, especially in the Roman Empire." "Semantics of Money-Uses", p. 27. The merchants and traders of that time were far ahead of "the state apparatus", as was the case in the 15th century European explosion, and in the case of 19th century European imperialism. 108Grierson, p. 10. 109As Walter Ong states, "In antiquity, writing had made possible the development of rhetoric and dialectic as formal disciplines, which they could not be in a completely oral culture, and thereby gave a new life temporarily to the oral institutions and states of mind which rhetoric and dialectic nourished themselves on and fed . . . The newer devices were first thought of as improvements of the old rather than as competing but different inventions with economies of their own. " The Presence of thg_Word, p. 239-240. A. N. Whitehead claims, "In its earlier dim origins the art of writing had been used for traditional hieratic formulae and for the formal purposes of government record and chronicle. It is a great mistake to think that in the past the full sweep of a new inven- tion has ever been anticipated at its first introduction . . . novelty slowly ate its way into the social system. Accordingly, writing as a stimulus to the preservation of individual novelty of thought, was but slowly grasped. " The Aims of Education, Mentor Books, New American Library, N.Y., 1963, p. 78. 110White, Machina ex Deo p. 112. What is of importance about the occurance of this phenomenon at this time and place is that, stxtb-cen- tury Ionia is considered by many scholars as the "birthplace" of science. Science, mathematics, the alphabet and money in the form of coinage are all of a piece. 1HSee K. Polanyi, "Aristotle Discovers the Economy", in Trade and Market in the Earlnympires, p. 64- 94. Also Harold Innis states, Ex- pansion_ of trade implied an increasing interest in arithmetic rather than geometry. " Empire and Communications, p. 86. Arithmetic, the mathematics of number relations-—i.e. counting--would naturally preceed geometry, the mathematics of space intuitions. 112 Polanyi, "The Semantics of Money-Uses" p. 24. 162 H31pm. p. 24. 114"The chief difference between administrative or treaty trade on the one hand and market trade on the other lies in the traders activi- ties themselves. In contrast to market trade, those activites are here risk-free both in regard to price expectation and debtors insolvancy." Polanyi, "Marketless Trading in Hammurabi's Time", Trade and Market jg_ the Early Empires, p. 20-21., 115Thus, Marx tells us that money makes "social power" into "private power." 1162evedei Barbu, Problems of Historical Psychology, p. 90. This new mentality included the notion of hoarding wealth. For currency not only represents wealth in the present, but also potential for the future increase of wealth. Usury begins. 117 Ibid. p. 91. 1181bid. p. 91. 119Innis, Empire and Communication, p. 85- 12oBarbu, Op. Cit. p. 95. 121This discussion on Aristotle leans heavily on Karl Polanyi's "Aristotle Discovers the Economy." 122Idiot comes from the Greek "idios" which means private, one's own. This obviously implies, in economic thought, "private property." 123This community orientation was widespread among the luminaries of Greece. All the individualizing technologies like the alphabet, were not well received at first. "Socrates was against writing; Plato ex- pressed a similar aversion. Sicilian noblemen for a long time refused to learn to read, holding that, as with numerals, the job is one for servants." Sebastian de Grazia, 9: Time, Work and Leisure, p. 344. Plato must have gotten over his aversion for we find'him attacking game; in the Republic. For Socrates aversion to writing see Plato's ae rus. 124Aristotle's theory of rates of exchange is based purely on con- ceptual grounds. It is Plato's theoretical arithmetic applied to trade relations. It can be said that Aristotle constructed a theoretical geometry of price equilibration since the skills of persons of differ- ent status had to be exchanged at a rate proportionate to their respec- tive status. Reciprocity had to be symmetrical. This was the "just 163 price." Any price arrived at by bargaining, Aristotle considered un- just. Trade,he thought, as did the ''economists" of Babylon a thousand years earlier, should be gainless. Aristotle constructs a perfectly static, visually biased economic world of exchange. 125A huge epidemic swept through Athens in 430 B.C. which ravaged the population. William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, Anchor Press, Doublday, N.Y., 1976, p. 106. ART 126Walter Ong states that, "The Hebrews tended to think of under- standing as a kind of hearing, whereas the Greeks thought of it more as a kind of seeing." The Presence pf thg_Word, p. 3. Ong has in mind here the Greeks of Euclide time and later, not the Greeks of Homer or even Pythagoras, who would have thought of understanding more as the Hebrews did. 127 Ivins, Art and Geometry, p. 8-9. 128This is so because touch is the least differentiated in function and least localized in body space of all the senses, while sight is the most differentiated in function and most localized on the body. The sense of touch is diffused throughout the body and we use it for nearly everything. Next comes smell and taste which are really a team but taste is a little more advance. They too operate at all times. The first highly differentiated sense is hearing. But the ears are rather widely separated on the body, and acoustical space, the space created by hearing, has no boundaries. We can hear noises from all directions and can place ourselves, that is establish a relationship, with noise even in total darkness. The eyes, being slightly separated and thus highly localized, can only see unidirectionally. Thus, eyesight is our most highly individuated sensory ability. 129For example, the Parthenon was completed in 438 B.C. 130"The peculiar position of Greek art was very definitely a pre- Euclidian idea." Ivins, Art and Geometry, p. 17. It should be remem- bered that the aural-oral tactile world also intruded into the Greek cutlure. Thus, Greek culture prior to Euclid, perhaps even prior to Plato with Plato acting as intermediary, was oral-tactile rather than purely tactile. But for the sake of simplicity I will only discuss the tactile vs.visual clash. The oral vs. visual clash is manifested in Socrates and Plato's fight with the aural-oral Sophists. 131Ibid. p. 80. "Another ancient idea of importance . . . was to see in the earthly environment a model of the cosmos. The regular motions of the stars were to be translated architecturally and ritually to space and time on earth . . . The key concept was built on the related notions 164 of rectilinearity, order and rectitude." "Discrepanices Between Environ- mental Attitude and Behavior. Examples from Europe and China", Yi-Fu Tuan, p. 77; from Man, Space and Environment, ed. P. English and R. Mayfield, Oxford Univ. Press, London, 1972 p. 68- 81. 132"The Greek religious tradition regarded the land not as an object to be exploited, or even as a visually pleasing setting, but as a true force which physically embodied the powers that ruled the world. " Yi- Fu Tuan, p. 70. Julian Jaynes' The Origins of Consciousness Ln the Break- down of the Bicameral Mind is a full- scale study on the process of indi- viduat1on. He asserts individuation began with writing which produced a "visual mind." 133Quoted in Schrodingers Nature and the Greeks, P- 71- 134This is of course the same thing as Aristotle's "self-sufficiency of the group" and his "just price." 135"The Greeks never mentioned among the axioms and postulates of their geometry their basic assumption of congruence." Ivins, p. x. "Congruence is the correlation of two regions of space, point by point so that all homologous distances and all homologous angles are equal. " A. N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education, p. 87-88. 135mm. p. 21. 13“The unity of the group in flow, to which the Greeks were blind, has become the essential aspect of the world for modern eyes." Ibid. p. 20. This is also a reflection of the lack of algebra, the mathe- matics of motion, in Greece. 138"Greek sculpture exists in a space by itself isolated from every- thing else in the world." Ibid. p. 24. 13911218. p. 129. PERSONALITY AND SOCIETY 140This, of course, cannot be applied across the literary-philosophical board. Aristotle and Plato both expressed more of a liking for the spoken than the written word. Erwin Panofsky in Studies ig_Titian: Mostly Iconographic; N.Y. University Press, 1969, p. 119-120 states that Aristotle, "for whom reading was an acoustic rather than a visual experience, main- tained that hearing alone gives speech and contributes most to learning and that a man born blind would be wiser than a man born deaf and mute." Plato, in the Phaedrus expresses his preference. 165 141". . . visual functions develop ontogenetically--and perhaps phylogenetically--1ater than other sensory functions." Zevedei Barbu, Problems of Historical Ps cholo p. 30. ". . . for abstract thinking the proximfity senses--smeil, taste, and in a special way touch although touch concerns space as well as contact and is thus simultaneously con- crete and abstract--must be minimized in favor of the more abstract hearing and sight." Walter Ong, The Presence gi_thg_Word, p. 6. Ong brings out the important point that touch is both concrete contact and abstract "space". Every disruptive innovation always evokes old patterns and constructs new patterns of human thought and feeling. Thus, every innovation puts us in touch with the cosmos in new ways by spacing phenomena differently. 142". ... hearing was the very essence of the bicameral mind. . . the coming of consciousness can in a certain vague sense be construed an a shift from an auditory mind to a visual mind." Julian Jaynes, p. 269. 143Barbu, Op. Cit. p. 244. 144Ibid. p. 245. Barbu here is exaggerating the differentiation powers of sight. The roots of differentiation, thus dimension, form and quantity lie in tactility which is the sensory root of sight. 145$pengler, The Decline of the Nest, vol. 1, P- 59~ 146Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, p. 289. 147Julian Jaynes defines subjective consciousness as, "the develop- ment on the basis of linguistic metaphors of an operation space in which an "I" could narratize out alternative actions to their consequences.“ The Origin of_Consciousness . . . p. 236. 148Jaynes, p. 68-91. By 900 B.C. there was no Greek word for "will." E.R. Dodds in his book, The Greeks and the Irrational, Univ. Of California Press, Los Angeles, 1951, states that by the fifth century B.C. the soul was considered for the first time to be different from the body. Jaynes says sixth-century. See p. 287-88. 149Jaynes, p. 71. Jaynes, among others including Dodds, thinks the Odyssey is not by Homer while the Iliad is supposed to be. For the 0d sse ascribes a much more developed sense of "I" to its characters than does the Iliad. 150See Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, p. 44. 15IBarbu, p. 98. The quest for fame exists in oral societies also. [See Ong, p. 14-15] the difference between the oral societies quest for 166 fame and the visual society's quest for fame is in the numbers of indi- viduals pursuing the quest. In oral societies, fame can only be the pursuit of the upper, specifically warrior, classes. But in visual societies, theoretically at least, the quest is open to all. 152"The transition of the Greek community from a social order based on traditional authority to one based on formal authority of the law starts in the sixth century . . . By his written code of laws, Solon made a conscious attempt to lay the foundation of a social order based on the citizen's personal respect for and obedience to the law." Barbu. Ibid. p. 119. 153This is a characteristic reversal, or chiasmic, process of any system weighted too heavily upon an inflexible set of assumptions. And it is rooted in the very structure of human mentality. "It is a charac- teristic chiasmus that waits upon the utmost development of any process that the last phase shall show characteristics opposite to the early phases." McLuhan, lhg_§gtenberngalaxy, p. 328; "Rationality, when con- ceived as complete, as excluding all arbitrariness, becomes itself a kind of irrationality. For, since it means the complete realization of all the possibles, insofar as they are composable, it excludes any limiting and selective principles." A.O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, Harper and Row, N.Y., 1929, p. 331. "In rebound, a bhiogical system pushed to the limits of stillness or of aroused excitation will snap back to the opposite pole of arousal . . . the extremes of high and low arousal connect through rebound." "I Can't Remember What I Said Last Night, But It Must Have Been Good," Psychology Today, vol. 10 #3, August 1976, p. 68. 154Dodds book The Greeks and the Irrational develops this thesis in full detail. THE PROCESS RECONSTITUTED Language "The history of the progress from script to print is a history of the gradual substitution of visual for auditory methods of communicating and receiving ideas."1 In "Europe" this progess is most visible in a single language, Latin. The history of Latin in the Middle Ages is the history of Europe to a large extent. For the domain of Latin as a "universal"2 tongue distin- guished Europe not only from Arab lands, but also from the Celtic and 3 Scandinavian worlds and from Byzantium. . Although numerous vernaculars co-existed with Latin "to be able to read was simply to be able to read Latin. "4 Until the coming of print, Latin was the only language in Europe able to move across the vernacular frontiers constructed after the wreckage of Rome. Between the invention of the alphabet and the invention of the printing press there are no innovations in the structure and form of language which can compare with these two inventions. However, the period @ SOO A.D. to @1450 A.D. provides an excellent example of the process, discussed in the epilogue, of mapping new perceptions into an old language. Those new perceptions were visual, and served to bring forth and extend to a broader spectrum of European society the mostly unused visual structures that had been mapped into Latin in antiquity. Thus, this period is a perfect case of a language responding to the 167 168 requirements of new social movements and organization. When writing and the alphabet dropped like megaton bombs on the hamlets of experience of oral societies, they restructured language patterns and mapped new visual assumptions into language. But with the decline of civilizations after their great "enlightenments", the oral modes were reasserted and acquired dominance. But this new dominance was not the monopoly the spoken word had before the advent of the alphabet. For once visual assumptions become part of the structure of a language, they are there for as long as that language exists. To become potent again, they need only be retrieved and reactivated by the users of the language. These users need either be visually-biased by nature, or be directed to think and perceive in visual terms through the agency of another society. The Latin world, like every other language world, had its innately visual people, and the Arabs and Greeks provided the directing visual assump- tions. Latin was the only language of the European region which could begin to adequately present the ideas of the Arabs and Greeks. For Latin was the only written language of significance.5 Its long written tradition had kept alive visual assumptions in its verbal structures. None of the vernaculars were equipped to handle either the advanced scientific and philosophic ideas and technicalities of the Arab scholars, which were products of their visual evolution, or the growing visual facility of Europeans themselves after the twelfth-century "renaissance."6 Paradoxically, because of its written form, the very remoteness of Latin from the masses proved the sole means through which a new era of visuality could be broughtinto being. As Europeans struggled to master the learning of the Arabs, Greeks and Romans, they had to place greater 169 emphasis upon visual modes of thought. This developed the mostly dor- mant visually-based syntactic and verbal structures of Latin. The work of this chapter is to trace this development. "Ancient Latin had in fact split into two separate lines of develop- ment. The one followed sight, the written word: here ancient Latin remained for all practical purposes unchanged. The other line followed sound, the spoken word. Somewhere between the sixth and ninth centuries, the dialects of Latin which have grown into modern Italian, Spanish, French and other Romantic tongues had moved so far along in their own development that the old Latin was quite incomprehensible to their ordi- nary users."7 Of course, it would be entirely appropriate to mention that by the sixth century A.D. the Roman Empire had shrunk to nothingness. Non-Latin speaking people had taken over the territories of Rome and with their lack of written language, the heydey of Latin literature and 8 The rise of the Latin grammerians had "signaled grammar came to a close. a marked shift away from the oral economy of speech to a written economy whiCh always gives primacy to visual modes of thought and perception.“9 With the coming of the illiterate "barbarians" the oral-biases of lan- guage--meter, rhythm and tone--were reasserted. Latin, except within the cloistered houses of monks and to a few literate others, fell into disuse in daily life. But Latin was orally enriched by this switch. As Walter Ong points out,"the natural tendency of spoken languages to evolve new verbal forms and structures had been helped by the influx of non-native speakers of Latin. Latin was "misused by these non-native speakers; that is to say, forms were speedily simplified."10 The simplification of language forms manifests the return to oral modes and patterns of thought, since without writing there is no way to 170 store information except in the memory. As an aid to quick and retenta- tive memory, oral cultures use only simple forms of syntax, relying instead on poetic devices such as rhyme and imagery. The nadir of Western civilization is traditionally thought to com- mence from this switch from visual to oral modes of thought and social organization. The great splintering of the Roman edifice released all those subjugated peoples, with their "private" community histories, who had not had an avenue of expression while under the scepter of Rome. Now their traditional languages, traditional rivalries and unities, were resurrected. The great unified empire of Rome was burst into thousands of more elementary tribal and clanish units. The political situation of Europe was to remain in a broken state for centuries except for brief flickers of advance such as the Merovingian and Carolingian "renaissances." But these rebirths were really only the retrieval of Latin works. They did revive Roman law,H and the Latin classics in poetry philosophy and theology, but there was no new spark to these times.12 Perhaps, the invasions of the Germanic peoples in the fifth century, and of the Vikings, Magyars and Muslims in the ninth, 12 proved too great for these "renaissances" to continue for long. But in addition, it must be added, neither the Merovingian nor the Carolingian renaissances introduced any advances in modes of thinking or perceiving.13 Oral forms of language flourished during this 1000 year period, especially until the twelfth century. Poetry, especially epic poetry, and oration became the highest artistic embodiment of this profoundly oral shift.14 The composition of medival poetry relied on recurrent rhythms which were pleasing to the ear rather than the eye. "Medieval poetry must be capable of recitation; if it could not stand this test, 171 ..15 the poet was regarded as a bungler. These powerful oral-aural rhythms dominated even the scribes approach to the written word. The medieval scribe who wished to decipher a text did not rely on whether he had seen a word before, but whether he had heard it before. "He brought not a visual but an auditory memory to the task."16 The dominance of oral modes of thought and memory, and the decline of the written and visual, also indicated a decline of the sense of an individuated self. All those oral characteristics of rigid adherence to group norms, dependence upon ancient authorities for guidance, and limited social organization, especially in the economy, flowered in the Europe of early medieval times. Not only did Europe cease to create new forms of literature, but also she gave up minting coins and ceased to advance mathematically and in the visual arts as well. The rise of oral modes of composition broke the established gramma- tical unity of Latin and plunged it into a welter of regional dialects. Pre-print medieval Europe"was an age when orthographical standards varied and grammatical accuracy was not highly esteemed, when language was fluid and was not necessarily regarded as a mark of nationality, when style meant the observance of fixed and complicated rules of rhetoric."17 The group norms held sway, with the Church Fathers providing the rules of attitude and behavior.18 Individuality of style and composition was sub- sumed under the rules of rhetoric which crippled and straitjacketed the form of medieval poetry. But should a poet fail to follow the rules, he would not have an audience. Because of this commonality of style,both orally and in writing, there was no great need to know the specific iden- tity of authorship of some popular work. "The subject matter was personal, 13'19 but the authorship was quite impersona The desire for personal 172 authorship and fame was vigorously renewed with the invention of print. Until print, most of the monastic chronicles were anonymous, as was most of the historical writing of the day.20 By the middle eleventh century however, a vague, near imperceptible, 2] Europe, having reached a change began to work into European thought. point nearing total anarchy after the invasions and ravagings of the Vikings, Magyars and Muslim brigands, began to grope toward broader social unities22 23 and concomitantly, there regrew the consciousness of self. The clerics organized councils for peace to lay the foundations for a new social order. The number of human activities to be protected from violence was enlarged to include not only rulers and men of the church, but also the merchants, harbingers of a new economic order. Roman law, 24 was revived and used which Ndropped out of sight between 603 and 1076" to regulate human interaction. Finally, when the kings and princes threw their power behind these improvements, the spade work for a new society was begun in earnest.25 Accompanying the newly protected merchants, and taking advantage of the relatively prosperous times, went the wondering troubadours. With their travels throughout the length and bredth of Europe, carrying news and performing songs and minstrel shows, there began to develop the faint glimmerings of a new standardized form of Latin which could be understood over a vast region since it was not pockmarked with dialectal idiosyncra- cies. Scribes, also able to travel more freely with less fear, recog- nized the need for a grammar to "hold" the new Latin. Thus, there re- sprouted a Latin grammar as "a kind of unchangeable identity of speech in different localities, times and places . . . Grammer, which is Latin (and visual), met the need for a universal language, free from all local or temporal influence which might modify it."26 173 The overlaying of the varied small societies and their vernaculars with an increasingly visual Latin had a great effect upon the lives and mentalities of people. And this effect was magnified and directed by the "new spirit which had begun to pervade lay society" which generated 27 These new needs for know- "new needs" in the unlearned for knowledge. ledge in the lay people, co-extensive with a great religious awakening in the latter half of the eleventh century, an awakening characterized by heated theological debates and, lead by the Clunaic reforms, a great increase in the number of religious orders, could only be met by the 29 This had the translation of many Latin texts into the vernaculars. effect of Latinizing the vernaculars and vernacularizing Latin. Char- acteristically, as with all innovations, the advance toward the new, broader, and more unified Latin based on grammar and providing a new dimension to the unification of disparate peoples," opened wide the doors of a whole tradition; in particular it gave access to a more faithful picture of the past."30 Every innovation both cleaves together and cleaves apart. The learned classes especially the ecclesiastics, responding to the religious awakening of the end of the millenium, began an intensive search and study of the old doctrines of the church. This transplanting of the past in the present generated new thoughts from their abrasion and opened the doors for innovation. The resulting Gregorian refbrm formally split the Eastern from the Western church and "proclaimed both the unique character and the supreme importance of the spiritual mission of the Church. It strove ”31 The to set the priest apart from and above the ordinary believer. process of differentiation, innate to visual assumptions,began to pro- ceed apace. The elevation of the priest above the common worshipper 174 re-enacts the elevation of the leisured Greek from his unleisured char- ges, and indicates a growing transition from oral,communal assumptions to visual, individuating assumptions. In the early twelfth century, in a world where previously "the sacred and the profane had been almost inextricably mingled",32 this split was a cause for alarm. But lay society, with its growing body of vernacular texts, also added to the processes of breakdown and unification. Formal learning opened to more and more sectors of society and by 1200 "vernacular his- tory had come to stay, and this fact is one of more than linguistic or literary significance, since it involved ultimately the secularization "33 and popularization of history. The secularization of learning gave rise to the universities with their new faculties of law, medicine and theology.34 These new areas of formal study received their impetus from outside Europe. Law came from ancient Rome, medicine from the Arabs and the Norman kingdom of Sicily, and theology changed with the influx of Arabic theology. "The twelfth century is the first European century in which law was 35 Roman law however had survived a separate and recognized profession." in two forms, "as the customary law of the Roman population, [which was the common law resting chiefly on the Theodosian code of 438 A.D.] and in the Corpus Juris Civilis as codified in the sixth century by Justinian."36 It was the latter form that was resurrected sincethe societies of Europe had their own common law. The revival of Roman statutory law sparked the revival of jurisprudence. It was statutory Roman law which was used by both the Church and the "new states" to legitamize their positions.37 Thus, the revival of the same Roman law served two competing factions. It solidified the growing bureaucracy of the Church and allowed her to 175 assert legal claim to new powers, but in addition, it provided the ra- tionale for the emergence of the independent sovereign state to compete ' with the church.38 With the spread of Roman law and the increase of lawyers there na- turally accrued an increase in literacy. And with more people able to read and write, there were more who felt comfortable with the written word. Newly awakened visual biases, worked into and developed through Latin, fed an enlarging administrative network. "There was arising a new power, or at least one that had hitherto been confined to the great 39 It became a churches and the papal court, namely the bureaucracy." necessity for state governments to employ literate pe0p1e to run their government. The first to recognize this new state of affairs were the Normans, and by the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries they were heading up the Holy Roman Empire, Britain and Sicily: all advanced governments for their day.40 Norman governments were bureaucratic, hierarchical and "rational", that is, visual. Latin continued to develop its visual intensity through another source, Spain. The Christian reconquest of Toledo in 1085 and Sara- gosa in 1118 opened Europe's doors to Arabic learning on a large scale.41 But it was not just the work of Arab scholars that was sought. Arab libraries also held the highly coveted mysteries of Greek and Roman learning, though Arabic had to be learned if these mysteries were to be known.42 Philosophy and science were the most pursued, and within science, medicine, mathematics, and mechanics were favored. This pre- ference, claims Homer Haskins, "reflects the practical and ecclesiasti- cal preoccupations of the age rather than the wider interests of the humanists."43 176 "Out of Spain came the new Euclid, the new algebra, and treatises on perspective and optics."44 By 1175, all of Euclid's major works, Al- Khwarizmi's trigonometric tables and his Algebra, and all the major Greek and Arabic writings on medicine were available in Latin: those on medi- cine thanks mostly to the great work of Constantine the African and Gerard of Cremona, who translated no less than 71 Arabic works.45 But for centuries medical training in Euorpe was to make no signi- ficant advances over those made by Greeks such as Galen and Hippocrates, or those made by Arabic physicians, such as Avicenna. Twelfth century minds, at least in the sciences, still placed themselves under the domi- nation of antiquity. There was no experimentation and there were prohibi- tions ,on autopsies. Only the Norman king, Frederick II of Sicily, seemed interested in experimentation. It is no surprise, then, that the 46 Here scholars most famous medical center in all of Europe was in Salerno. and travelers mingled from the entire Mediterranean region and from Europe. There Europeans could learn Greek and Arabic, the "language of science", and take translations back to their own lands. These new works on science, logic and philosophy enabled the universities of Europe to gain ground on and eventually overcome the intellectual rule of the monasteries. Monasteries and cathedrals, especially in Northern France, had been the major centers of learning prior to the twelfth century. Their libra- ries, usually containing only 250 or so volumes,47 were chiefly composed of theological works with appended commentaries. If any "pagan"work could be found they would be works of Roman poets such as Virgil or Ovid. Since nobody knew any Greek, scholars relied on Latin translations for any know- ledge they might possess of Aristotle and Plato. Because of this extreme paucity of books, the monasteries early on made the copying of books "a meritorious form of labor". Peter the 177 48 Venerable, abbot of Clune and an implacable enemy of Islam, made the copying of books superior to working in the fields, and promised eternal rewards for copiers.49 But with a flood of new works the monasteries lost their grip on not only the secular studies of science, but also, and more importantly for them, over theology. For centuries theology had been subsumed under and controlled by the thoughts of the Fathers. Now under steady injec- tions of Plato, Aristotle, Averroes and others, all much more visually- biased independent seekers for truth than the monks, "corresponding "50 These changes had to be changes took place in the mentality of men. toward more visual assumptions, toward more general, abstract and sys- tematic modes of thought if these earlier thinkers were to be translated into Latin so Europeans could understand them. VThe Middle Ages went through a great reorganization of the sensorium without knowing it was doing so . . . Far more than had the ancient Greeks . . . [medieval man] . heightened the visualist, quantified quotients of awareness."51 Plato was initially the most translated and well liked of the Greek philosophers. This could have been due not only to the less systematic bent of his writings as opposed to Aristotle's, but more than this, the favorable reception of Plato was due to Augustine's stamp of approval. The Platonic influence outweighed that of Aristotle's in the twelfth century.52 Aristotle, however, brings ngjg_and Politics. In addition, with Aristotle comes the great Arab philosopher and Aristotelian commentator Averroes. The Church had problems reconciling some of Aristotle's and Averroes'statements with Church doctrine. Though Aristotle was honored, the force and direction of his logical thought lead him to say things 178 which were "more than a little tinged with concepts which Christian. 1."53 The continued application Europe could only classify as heretica of Aristotle's ngig_eventually broke the spine of the church, with Abelard's §jg_gt_Ngn_the most famous attack upon traditional authority launched from the camps of the new Aristotelians. Though there still existed preference for verbal disputation over written exchanges, which was to continue for centuries, the tide was beginning to turn. Since "thought itself was felt to take place typically in an oral exchange, the art of structuring thought was still taken to be dialectic, an art of discourse, rather than pure logic."54 But new thoughts, and more importantly new modes of thought, were being generated through the abrasion of the oral mind of Europe with the visual mind of Plato, Aristotle and the great Arab thinkers. Some major steps were taken in the twelfth century which mirrored those steps taken by fifth-century B.C. Greek thinkers in their "age of anxiety." It is only with the twelfth century that a nurturing of a "critical spirit" occurs in the writings of European thinkers. In addition, the new idea of man the "citizen" rather than man the "subject" attains cur- rency. A new concern for orderliness, whether in society or in thought, appears, and a new sense of imagination reflected in religious literature, 55 But these architecture and even financial administration is manifested. changes are more than just new ideas. They are new modes of thought. New ways to think about subjects and topics. As Charles Radding states, "The Politics was important not because it brought new ideas but because it provided a framework for medieval thinkers to discuss ideas in which they were already interested."56 The building of a logical framework within which the full develop- ment of a visual bias could take place was begun in the twelfth century. 179 It continued to rise slowly until the appearance of print when it"took- off." Latin responded to the heavy visual structure demanded from it. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the rapier of dialectic continued to cut into the fabric of oral-traditional European society. The critical spirit grew and extended to more sectors of society. Writ- ing took over all the important functions of state and Church and was sufficiently accepted and wide-spread that the writing of letters could 57 Individuality,child of the critical spirit and become a profession. manifestation of a strong visual bias, was given more room to develop as the bonds of traditional society were burst asunder. And with the unharnessing of individuality, the "growth of records, the increase in litigation, and the refinement of literary skill in the twelfth century carry another consequence in their train, namely, a large crop of for- geries."58 ’ But the spirit of individuality prior to 1450 was nothing compared to what it became after 1450. This was due, among other things, chiefly to the printing press which, next to the invention of the phonetic alpha- bet itself, was the single most powerful invention in the history of language. The inherent effects for change which resided within the printed page did not escape the notice of some people of the mid-fifteenth cen- tury. "Luther, himself, described printingas God's highest and extre- mist act of grace whereby the business of the Gospel is drived forward." 59 Leonardo da John Fox also "heralded the excellent arte of printing." Vinci expressed an utter contempt for typography and printing, but Albrecht Durer "very early had grasped the revolutionary import of the printing press."60 A great number of these changes began with a 180 restructuring of thought and perception and these mental changes were later translated into social upheaval. The changes initiated by print manifested the same twin processes of integration and desintegration that mark all innovations. ' "The first effects were ambiguous enough, even amusingly so, for the initial movement away from the polemic of academic life itself turned out to be highly polemic: the old system of disputation became an object of dispute between the humanists, who would have no more of it, and the scholastics, for whom it was synonomous with the life of the mind. Even when efforts at reform were not themselves disputations attacks on the previous system, new approaches to knowledge were likely to be shot through with oral-aural modes of thought."61 Walter Ong clearly points out the elevation to awareness of the old oral-systems environment of learning after the intrusion of the new visual written form, whose structure also became immediately visible to the participants in the dispute. "The older oral polemic institutions in fact at first even profited from the new medium of print, which later "62 But more recognition of the was to neutralize the same institutions. structural characteristics of print was not enough to indicate what their full impact might be. "The newer devices were at first thought of as improvements of the old rather than as competing but different inven- 63 This is of course standard PVO' tions with economies of their own." cedure with innovation. When Latin grammar was renewed sometime in the pre-twelfth century, one of the resulting effects was a renewed interest in the vernaculars. Print escalated this process even further for "it is the natural bias of print culture to be past-oreinted, and above all to be consumer oriented."64 181 Print was at first only the omnivorous and rapid reproducer of medieval manuscripts. It did not change reading content. Though there was a large increase in the numbers of medieval manuscripts in circulation, "bookish culture of Europe between 1450 and 1550 was not markedly dif- ferent from that which prevailed between 1350 and 1450" in the content 65 of its reading material. But because of the huge increase in the amount of materials available, the reading public itself was greatly increased.66 The greatest numerical increase in readers occured in the lower classes, not among the already educated upper classes. It was the newly emerging artists and technicians who took up reading. And in their writings, "there was a universal tendency to replace Latin. . . "67 by the vernacular. The competition meant that "vernacular translators often worked at cross-purposes with classical scholars" who worked to preserve Latin from the popular vernaculars.68 With the coming of print,though, Latin was doomed. One effect of any innovation is to destroy the hegemony of the preceeding social sys- tem. In Europe this ruling system was held together by Latin precisely because Latin was not tied to any dialect or vernacular. With the re- vival of vernaculars,however, Latin lost importance and became just one among many languages. It is the vernaculars which are the "soul of a 69 people," and thus, "it may well be that print and nationalism are axio- logical or co-ordinate, simply because by print a people sees itself for the first time. The vernacular in appearing in high visual definition affords a glimpse of social unity co-extensive with vernacular boundaries."70 Language had acquired a new political clout.71 But the effects of print were not limited to its unparalleled facility for retrieving tradition and making that tradition available to large 182 numbers of people. Print created new social divisions and new social unifications in other ways. “The new presses probably did not gradually make available to low—born men what had previously been restricted to high-born. Instead, changes in mental habits and attitudes entailed by access to printed materials affected a wide social spectrum from the outset.“72 These new mental habits included changes in scholarship itself. In oral cultures, and even to a great extent in manuscript cultures, retension of information is done entirely in human memory. The approach to words is more auditory than visual. With the advent of print, the visual approach to language takes precedence and the retension of infor- mation relating to the past can be stored in books. This relieves the human mind from having to spend a great deal of time merely repeating what it already has stored to ensure it is preserved. With writing, but especially print, storage is objectified in books and manuscripts, and the great numbers of books prevent the loss of knowledge -- a problem that plagued the manuscript culture of medieval Europe. The mind is then free to investigate new things with full confidence that the old won't be lost. Books replace the human memory as the dominant repository of the knowledge of society. Thus, "classical scholarship and historical research along with a variety of auxiliary disciplines become subject to continuous cognitive advance only after and not until the establishment of printing plants in the second half of the fifteenth century."73 This continuous cognitive advance had important benefits for Europeans engaged with print. For it signaled, “changes in the way all forms of learning were transmitted. Intellectual trade routes were drastically reoriented in a manner that revolutionized traditional 183 contacts between East and West -- to the extent of outmoding the pre- vious reliance on personal intercourse and diminishing the impact of "74 Europe was gaining her antonomy from the Middle emigre movements. East and from the learning of its scholars. In fact, the roles were beginning to be reversed. Europeans were beginning to take the lead in all forms of knowledge. As Fernand Braudel states, "Taken as a whole, traffic in books was a means of power at the disposal of the West."75 But typography, being the most highly visual of technologies, also exercised a profound influence over the individual psyche. It greatly nourished and rapidly developed the till then slowly blossoming idea of individuality. "Typography . . . provided the physical means for exten- "76 The ding the dimensions of the private author in space and time. idea of private authorship broke forth in full torrent after the inven- tion of print. And with private authorship came individual authority in a field of knowledge. "Prior to 1500 or thereabouts people did not attach the same importance to ascertaining the precise identity of the author of a book" that they did afterward.77 This notion of individuality both fed typography and was fed by it in return. Great social movements were swirling throughout Europe which called for individual initiative in business and commercial affairs and in the private “interior" search for religious truth. The urban bour- geoisie and merchants, and the Reformation, were breaking traditional European society apart at the seams, and both the artisans and merchants and the religious reformers, who often were one and the same, seized upon and used print for their advancement. "The social penetration of literacy, which was linked with Bible reading, thus affected the timing of revolutions of rising expectations."78 184 The printing "industry" not only created many new jobs, such as compositor or type-founder, but also "traditional skills developed by metal workers, merchants and scholars were directed toward new ends."79 New occupational groups were created while old ones, such as the paid scribe, receded into oblivion, or hung on as art-forms. Within these occupational groups, those artisans who learned to master letters "did in fact become better rounded as well as more upwardly mobile and more conscious of their own worth."80 The high tide of the middle-class and the expansion of its influence were fed by a river of "how to manuals", primers and grammars which presented and/or explained anything from the mechanics of constructing additions to buildings, to cooking recipes, to herbal medicine.81 These manuals were big sellers in Protestant areas, but their popularity fell off among Catholics. The Catholic church looked upon the printing press with a good deal of skepticism, while the Protestants endorsed it heart and soul.8.2 - "The advent of printing was an important pre-condition for the Protestant Reformation taken as a whole; for without it one could not implement a 83 The Catholic church realized that the priesthood of all believers." democratizing effect of print, with its emphasis not only upon the written word, but also its emphasis upon the solitary reader, could wreck the church hierarchy. Printers, knowing this, could and did print orthodox views one day and heretical views the next depending upon the "order" for the day. This arrangement invariably posed the Church in a bad . light. Print inevitably shattered the status quo and exposed the Church's corrupt and anachronistic practices to the eyes of all readers. With the advent of the printing press the Church could not long endure un- challenged or unchanged. "Gutenberg's invention probably contributed 185 more to destroying Christian concord and enflaming religious warfare than any of the so-called arts of war ever did."84 But none of these changes and chances,both provoked by and provoking the printed word,is the biggest effect print had on the European mental- ity, though contributing to it. The advent and establishment of print signals the enthronement of a visual-bias to modes of thought and per- ception. Print may have resurrected and reinforced linguistic barriers for the vernaculars, thereby cutting away a good deal of Latin-based pretentious cosmopolitanism, but the price the vernaculars had to pay for this "gift" was the standardization of their structure. Not only linguistic but "religious and dynastic frontiers were fixed more perman- ently by the same wholesale industry that operated most profitably by tapping cosmopolitan markets and was naturally antagonistic to all the old frontiers."85 Print had this magical "preservative power" that was manifested when the printed text appeared, shorn of the many scribal idiosyncracies that always entered into the copy of a manuscript. By the "sixteenth century the norms of language became more strict, and 86 Printers, the borderline between the different norms grew more evident." themselves,began to perceive the power they wielded in the formation of public opinion. And more than this, they realized that "basic changes 87 For in book format might well lead to changes in thought patterns." printers were among the first to recognize that the learning process itself was switching from learning by doing to learning by reading, and they controlled to a large extent what would be read and how that would be printed. Standards were soon introduced into printing so that betweeen 1580 and 1660 Europe "moved a long way from what is to us unintelligibility 186 "88 All these movements toward standardization in their use of language. are outgrowths of the orderliness and general simplification of the modes of transmission of thought that go along with a visual bias. Thus, though the innovation of print gave new life to the vernacu- lars, even making them one of the cornerstones of incipient nationalism, though it created the textual criticism of the classicists while at the same time undermining the Latin they sought to preserve, though "by stressing other effects of the shift from script to print, one might throw new light on the relationship between Protestantism and a "new" spirit of capitalism",89 the greatest effect of print was the full eman- cipation of a visual bias from its oral bonds. For "until the written becomes the printed word and education enables a wide public to read for themselves, instead of depending upon recitation, linguistic stability is hardly possible . . . [Only] . . . when literature and history are circulated in forms accessible to the public, and when some interest in the country's past has been aroused, has the basis been laid for the formation of a national linguistic consciousness, and a language is felt to be the expression of tribal or racial characteristics. For print alone can secure the indispensable conditions of standardization, the substitution of visual of acoustic word-memory."90 Mathematics "Mathematics", says Alfred North Whitehead, "is concerned with cer- tain forms of process issuing into forms which are components of further process."91 As I explained in the previous chapter, ideas about forms of process were just beginning to appear among the Greek philosophers, noticably Plato and Aristotle, when the great age of Greek culture was 187 fast fading. The Romans, heirs to the intellectual fortune left by the Greeks, made no noticeable advances in mathematical forms of process. They more or less took over, in toto, the Greek mathematical heritage and operated within its borders. 'In the Middle East the vibrant Islamic civilization, which sprung up upon the fertile teachings of Muhammad, had no such feelings of sanc- tity for Greek thought. Through the great minds of Islamic culture alone mathematics advanced from the fall of Rome to the beginnings of the twelfth century, when Europe made her move toward cultural autonomy. The development of mathematics in the "West" was severely hampered by two intellectual watchmen who eventually merged into one leviathan: Christian church doctrine and Neoplatonism. Christian theologians, though sincere, nevertheless erected near insuperable intellectual barriers to the progress of thought in general, and to mathematics in particular.92 The Revelation of Christ was for them the greatest ex- pression of rationality known. It helped that the content of Christ's revelation fit so comfortably into a Greek mold. A11 Plato's non- material "Ideas" were to be found in the Revelation of Christ, and "since the creatures are images of the Divine Ideas, there is not one of them in which the perfection of their common cause does not find its expression."93 There was no need to investigate and understand the natural world since the creatures'Ideal forms, their teleological mean- ing, were already to be found in Scripture. One need only study Scrip- ture, "which passes all the capacities of the human mind."94 The structural identity exhibited in the thought of the Church Fathers and the Neoplatonists presented to medieval time a united front against intellectual advancement. Neoplatonism, "starved mathematics 188 by depriving it of any contact with experimental science, and created an intellectual atmosphere in which scientific research of every kind was abandoned."95 Neoplatonism was the dominant school of thought in those few in- tellectual centers left operating in Europe after the demise of Rome, though the name Neoplatonists was not carried past the sixth century. Rather, by Neoplatonism I mean a mode of thought and a method of appre- hending the world. This mode was carried in the Biblical commentaries of Augustine, Origin and others, whose works formed part of every monastery'slibrary. Of books and writings from the Greeks and Romans on mathematics itself there were almost none. And those that did exist, derived their inspiration and presentation from either the writings of the first-century Greek mathematician Nichomachus, as produced by Boethius, a sixth century Roman philosopher,96 or from Plato's Timeaus, Plato's major work on number. The Timeaus was held in such high esteem that, "in some periods it was thought to contain the supreme knowledge about nature."97 Boethius arithmetic -- for all of geometry and the other "advanced mathematics“ of the Greeks were lost to Europe -- did not include any specifications for addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. It was strictly a non-utilitarian work reflecting the speculative bent about numbers of his Greek mentors. Mysticism and numbers were inextri- cably intertwined in the Timeaus and the works of Boethius. Numbers were only for categorizing discrete objects and "essences." It was static, immobile, fixed. It was the kindcfl’arithmetic that mirrored the static "perfect world" of Christian revelation. This was the arith- metic of the Church.98 189 "Medieval thought saw the world as a series of concentric spheres. At the center of the earth was a point about which the whole universe was arrayed. Given the spherical and static image which dominated this cosmology there had to be sucha point and it had to be where it in fact was: at the center of the earth."99 And it was the unique position that Christ occupied in Christian theology that lead medieval scientists to perceive the earth not only at the center but also at the bottom of the universe. This placing of the earth at the bottom of the Universe, and, by proxy, because humans inhabited earth their position in rela- tion to the celestial beings was also at the bottom, lead to a peculiar geocentricity of thinking where the earth and humanity were both de- praved and glorified. Depraved in their original, that is, their na- tural condition, but glorified through the coming of Christ. This bizarre cosmography of the medieval mind "served rather for man's humi- "100 so that the doctrine of Christian liation than for his exaltation, salvation would be recognized as the true path to salvation and exalta- tion. But this cosmography had two other important facets which catch our attention: the concern for ordering the natural world, and the philosophical investigation into the nature of time. - The concern for ordering, in hierarchical fashion, the natural world was, paradoxically, an acceptable enterprise for medieval scien- tists. Though the natural world was depraved compared to the sparkling webs of fantasy invented for the celestial circles, nevertheless, a study of the other creatures of the planet would not only indicate the matchless creative power of God, but also, illustrate to man the unique- ness of his own dual nature. For man could become spiritual if he shed 190 his material nature. But his material nature occupied center stage when the question "How can it be overcome?", was asked. An answer to this question would come after long deliberation upon the natural order of life. Here again, however, medieval scientists did no close observation and no experimentation. "The biological sciences remained, throughout the Middle Ages, close to the level set by Pliny and the other encyclo- 10] Little work, other than classification and re-classification pedists." of the various plants and animals, was ever attempted. But in accordance with the principle of classification it became clear "that all creation, and especially the living portion, is arranged in hierarchical fashion. The pieces are sequentually set out to ornament the world, each of which "102 Man could take some com- is better than the one that comes before. fort in his position of earthly dominion, though he was at the bottom of the spiritual grades. Thus, theology paved the way for later scientific investigation of the natural world by legitimizing the practice of order- 103 "MedieVal ing and comparing man and nature to nature's detriment. scientists discussed the world that immediately surrounded them. It is only the science of later periods that will gradually withdraw from and idealize nature in order to wrest from it the abstract laws that are ‘04 Those abstract apparently better suited to account for its actions." laws proved to be mathematical in form and mathematical form was beyond the reach of medieval scientists. The lack of sophistication with numbers was also apparent in the medieval apprehension of time. Yet, the coming of Christ had much to do with time. For most Christians, Christ was the incarnation of God. The moment of His incarnation would mark a new era in human affairs. 191 It marked, in effect, a clean break with the world of the past. Time was divided into B.C. and A.D. And for time to be considered in this way, it had to be considered not from the Greek and Roman cyclical image 105 It was this change in the apprehension and 106 but a new linear image. image of time that the great Augustine agonized about. But, this agonizing over the meaning and "structure" of time which never got beyond the point of philosophical speculation soon died out. As in Hellenic Greece, the questions of philosophy which had to do with quantity and movement remained entirely abstract and removed from daily life as long as there was no number theory and number system to measure movement. Time's passage as a linear, irretrieveable sequence of mom- ents escaped the grasp of medieval men "because they were so ill-equipped to measure it."107 Clocks of anykind were rare before the fourteenth century. Time was a hazy conception tuned more to the rhythm of the seasons and the stars than to clocks. The quest for ever more precise measurement was still several centuries in the future. But, "it was not the notion of time only, it was the domain of number as a whole which suffered from this haziness . . . The truth is that the regard for accu- racy, with its firm buttress, the respect for figures, remained profoundly ‘08 As we have I seen, this disregard for accuracy is implicit within oral-aural modes of alien to the minds of even the leading men of that age." thought where abstract time and bodyless numbers are unheard of. Never- theless, Christian theology occupied itself for centuries, without clear success, with the nature of time and in doing so established the question of time's nature as an acceptable investigation. By the beginning of the twelfth century, then, there already existed a body of thought, abstract and inconsistent though it was, which provided 192 a foundation for further investigation into the natural world and the world of time and movement. What medieval speculation required to sort out and discover the truth in these matters was a set of mathematical tools, and a new mode of thought through which to distance itself from its tradition. Both of these were provided by the Islamic scholars. While Europe was in the throes of an intellectual stagnation which threatened to crystalize into immobility, the Middle East was exploding in a burst of energy which would take Islam to the gates of Europe the West and into the Imperial Court of China to the East. The Islamic civilization, like all great civilizations including the European which was to succeed it, was both a great borrower of others'ideas, and a great originator of new modes of thought created out of this fruitful mix. Circulating within that creative ferment of Islam was the thoughts and writings of Greece and Rome. That which was lost to Europe was pre- served and improved in Islam. The Roman emperor Justinian closed the last school of "pagan" philosophy in Athens in A.D. 529. At approximately the same time, Alexandria lost her station as the cultural hub of the Mediterranean basin. With these two losses went "Western" contact with most of the learning of the Greeks and Romans. In the West, only a few scholars, such as Boethius and Cassiodorus,109 kept a flicker of Greek learning alive. From Athens, Alexandria and other schools of "pagan" learning, scholars migrated eastward and established schools in Antioch and Edessa. The schools founded in these cities by the banished Nestorians became the new intellectual centers of Greek learning. Arab science grew from the intellectual soil of these colonies of emigres. Here searching 193 minds found Aristotle, Plato, Euclid and all the other Greek luminaries. Here, during the eighth and ninth centuries, Arabic became the universal language of science as knowledge-hungry Islamic scholars translated all the Greek and Indian manuscripts they found.“0 Upon the wealth of mathematical knowledge learned in the study of Greek and Indian thinkers, Islamic thinkers began to construct new mathematical forms. Foremost among these was algebra, whose beginnings are usually attributed to Al-Huwarizmi Algaritmi in the ninth century. These new mathematical forms enabled Islam to hold the lead in scienti- fic activity from roughly 750 A.D. to 1150 A.D.m Prior to 1150 A.D., little was known in Europe of the great ad- vances made by Islamic scholars in all branches of knowledge. Little was known about Islam itself, though, of course, many knew of this new faith and knew of Arab peoples. But except for a rare ambitious scholar, such as the tenth century's Gerbert of Aurillac, later Pope Sylvester II, little effort was expended by monks and scholars to learn of Islamic advances before the twelfth century.“2 In the latter decades of the eleventh century and first decades of the twelfth, European society was buffeted by internal storms of great social magnitude. Population was increasing and becoming more urbanized, old traditions were coming under increasing attack, a mil- lenial zeal had awakened religious impulses and set them sparking and sputtering in all directions. In short, it was a society overcoming its moribundity and setting out to search for answers to long festering questions. European scholars, following in the wake of the reconquest of Toledo and Saragosa, opened the libraries of these cities and with the help of Arab and Jewish scholars began a translation work of such 194 magnitude as to parallel that of the eighth and ninth centuries in Antioch and Edessa. All the great works of Greece, Rome and Islam fell to the pen of the Latin scholars. This "reception of Arabic science in Western Europe marks a turning-point in the history of European intelli- gence.”n3 Though some Arabic and Greek translations came up through Italy,"out of Spain come the new Euclid, the new algebra, and treatises "114 on perspective and optics. The works of Galen, Hypocrates and Avicenna infused new knowledge into European medicine.115 The monasteries and cities of Northern France were the initial beneficiaries of this translation work, with the school of Chartres heading the list.116 But the major influence of these new works was not in medicine, or that they enabled this or that school to attain a dominant, and evitably transitory, position among the learning centers of Europe. Their major influence was an infusion into the minds of first the translators, then the readers of the translated works, and ultimately throughout Western Europe, of a new set of assumptions about the nature of the world. These new assumptions were highly visual, de- tached from theological wranglings, mathematical in form and scientific in character. A tremendous intellectual revolution began in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with the diffusion of Arabic mathematics; a revolution which by the end of the sixteenth century had wrenched Western European from its feudalistic, agrarian orientation, and placed it upon the threshold of mechanized industrialism. But the revolution was not only social. It was also cognitive and perceptual, especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The chief culprit of this change was "zero." "When a twelfth-century translator came upon Al-Khowarizmi's Arithmetic in Spain, he gave to the Latin world a more sophisticated 195 method of calculation which, by reintroducing a symbol for zero, did away with the need for a fixed structure of columns, and enabled the calculator to substitute pen and paper for counters."H7 Before the introduction of the Arabic number system and, more im- portantly, Indo-Arabic number relations -- it was the Indians who invented the zero, and it was from the Indians that the Arab scholars gained knowledge of mathematics -- Europeans calculated by means of the abacus, and used Roman numerals as figures in their arithmetical problems. But veach pebble, or piece of wood, in the abacus, like each Greek or Roman numeral, represented a quantity. There was no conception of nothingness as somethingness. Niether the Greeks and Romans, nor the early medieval Europeans, were visual enough to make this extraordinary perceptual leap. For such a leap inevitably distances the visual-minded observer from what he is observing. Medieval Europe was profoundly oral and embedded within an oral perceptuo-cognitive matrix which was always filled with objects and thoughts. This cosmic stuffing represented the plentitude of God Who, being perfect and whole, could not have "nothing" exist in His creation. . Thus, for every new kind of quantity discovered or calculated to exist, Greek, Roman and medieval European number systems had to invent new numbers. Theoretically, at least, there would have to be an infi- nite range and infinite kinds of numbers. Computation via the abacus proved very awkward and unwieldy for large numbers since there existed no method for carrying quantities from column to column. Calculation was done in whole groups, one group of ones, one of tens and so on. While this method was adequate for the mysticism of the church, it was terribly ungainly for c6mmercial transactions. 196 The Arabic number system cured all the awkwardness of calculation that existed with Roman numerals and the abacus. For "zero makes it unnecessary to invent other significant numerals since there is no num- "118 That is, using only her that cannot be represented in this way. the integers 1-9 plus 0, all numbers through infinity can be represented and caluclated. While both the abacists and the algorists established number as an orderly progression originating in the unity of l, "a most important difference between the two treatises . . . [the abacist and the algorist] . . . lies in the reintroduction of the symbol for zero 119 by the algorisms. The device had been employed by the abacists, but apparently only rarely; they failed to perceive its usefulness."120 But if the usefulness of zero and Arabic numbers wasn't perceived, the metaphysical implications were quick to draw comment. Zero was generally considered to be different in kind from other numbers.]21 For zero, the symbol for nothingness, gave shape to what was thought to be non-existent. It was the first manifestation of a purely intellec- tual "object." This was a radical idea for Europeans and there was much "difficulty and confusion of thought associated with the notion of zero."122 Number, in one great leap, ceased to be correlated with and dependent upon discrete natural objects and quantities. No longer could number be "a symbolic exemplification of the order and hierarchy of Being" which had "metaphysical and theological significance."123 The infinity of creation, which had found expression in the arithmetical in- finity of numbers, could not rest upon the Arabic intellectual innovation which bound up numbers. As one thirteenth-century abacist cried out, "They have bound number which is infinite, by some kind of limit as if "124 it were finite. Zero threw a net around the mathematical world of 197 Europe and dragged all the levels of number down into a single lineal continuum on the flat-planar space of visuality. The "new classifica- tion of number rested upon seeing how number can be likened to a line, and this was precisely the analogy which was excluded by the previous "125 No longer did every stress on the discontinuous act of counting. number, and every unit of number, have its unique nature. Now all numbers had the same nature. Difference was simply a calculation of magnitude. Number was homogenized, levelled, secularized. This change from the hierarchy of discrete entities to the democracy of variegated magnitudes of a single nature signaled a "change from concentration on the concrete instance to an interest in the theory of the subject of numbers itself."126 Thought had broken the bonds of nature. For Arabic number theory replaced discrete numbers in their individuality with a single set of number relations. This is the binding of infinity. And this represented a leap from signs to symbols. The new limit im- posed upon discrete numbers was the homogenization of numbers into general, shared, qualities. Arabic number theory replaced Greek arith- metical infinity with algebraic infinity by representing the entire infinite, linear arithmetical progression with a single symbol, or letter; e.g. X. The perpetually diachronic nature of infinite lineality was frozen into synchronic immobility with a single letter which repre- sented not any one number, but the arithmetical relation of all numbers. Algebra was a new perceptuo-cognitive order, where letters were the em- bodiments of relations conceived as objects. It is no wonder that, "the transformation of a series of discrete numbers into a continuum chal- lenged not merely the Classical notion of number but the Classical world- idea itself."127 198 But in reality all these great changes did not occur all at once. As we have seen, innovations are always first applied to old processes. Eleventh-century treatises on the abacus often merely substituted Arabic numerals for Roman numerals. Algorism was thought to only a "technical" innovation of practical utility.128 Addition and subtraction which in abacist reckoning began from left to right, was at first simply taken over by the algorists. "The result after this subtraction usually re- places the minuend exactly as if counters had been used, and actually 129 removed from the board." Later, however, "subtraction and addition in particular might be begun from either the left or the right."130 It wasn't until the sixteenth century that left to right became standard- ized. This standardization had to do with the impact of print.]31 Gradually the power and efficiency of the Arabic system replaced that of the abacists. This was not for metaphysical but practical reasons. For the use of zero "makes the use of the fixed columns of the abacus unnecessary."132 With Arabic numerals, calculation can be done swiftly with pencil and paper. Numerous treatises were written to explain the new system, with those of Sacrobosco, Alexander of Villa Dei, and Fibonacci the most well-known. Alexander and Sacrobosco derived their knowledge from the Arabic archives of Spain, while Fibonacci worked in Pisa, Italy. Liber Abggi_was more advanced than those of Alexander and Sacrobosco though all wrote at approximately the same time. Fibonacci's book explains not only the four major operations of arithmetic, but also discusses square and cube roots, and includes "explanations of commodity exchange, "133 pricing, partnerships and other commercial uses of arithmetic. Fibonacci also seems to have been the first to introduce Europe to the 199 notion of subtraction by borrowing from the higher order place in the minuend. But though Fibonacci's book was known, it was not until the mid-fourteenth century that Liber Abaci was as popular as those of Alexander and Sacrobosco. This may have been because the advanced mathematical ideas expressed by Fibonacci were beyond the grasp of most Europeans.134 England proved to be the most receptive to the new number system.135 The curriculum at Oxford early on instituted study of the algorist texts of Sacrobosco and others. And it was in England that some of the most advanced scientific work was carried out in the thirteenth and fourteenth- centuries under the direction of Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon and Thomas Bradwardine.136 By the middle of the fourteenth century, the last vestiges of Greek philosophy were giving way to the new mechanics founded upon Arabic 'mathematics. Prior to then, Europe was a mixture of Greek definitions 137 and Arabic methods. But, through the work of Bradwardine and others, the Greek philosophy of numbers faded. Aristotle and the quadrivium took precedence over the trivium.138 The emergence of Aristotle from the shadow of Plato was, it seems, a necessary step for medieval people to take if they were to advance in scientific investigation and to new apprehensions of time, both problems which confounded the Neoplatonists. The twelfth-century was Plato's, but "the thirteenth-century can be broadly defined as the period when 139 The transition from Aristotelianism was absorbed and assimilated." Platonism to Aristotelianism seemed as natural in the thirteenth-century A.D. as it did in fourth century B.C. Greece. As we saw earlier, Platonic thought lead right up to the threshold of a mathematics of motion, but it was Aristotle who finally crossed that threshold, at least in theory. 200 The twelfth-century was the first century since the sixth century to concern itself with system and motion.140 For guidance in this search it turned primarily to Plato. But Platonic staticism could not contain the new dynamism of Arabic science. By the thirteenth-century Europe had turned to Aristotle who, of all the Greek philosophers, was the favorite among the scholars of Islam. "The reception of Aristotle was due in no small part to the fact that he seemed to offer a solution to problems which had already been recognized and that the terms of his solution were appropriate to the earlier formulation of that question."]41 Aristotelian thought was compared to Platonics thought, systematic and relational. It seemed to provide a kind of intellectual glue to bond together the multifarious energies which exploded out of the late eleventh century and which threatened to obliterate scholastic tradition. And Aristotelian logic, the match which lit all the theoretical Rpman candles set-off in the twelfth century, provided the clearest model for thinking systematically. To harness the advancing, homogenizing pres- sure of the new number system, Aristotelianism seemed a necessary philo- sophical coup d'etat. But Arabic number theory, and the intricate re- lations which bound all numbers together under its dominion, proved stronger than the bondency power of Aristotelian philosophy. The two relational systems clashed and Aristotle came out the loser. Arab numbers were too visual for the more oral modes of thought of Aristotle. Aristotle, though, planted the idea of system,and thirteenth and four- teenth-century Europeans fed that idea with fertilizer imported from the Middle East. Yet, the mix of Aristotle, Plato, Islam and the resurgence of religious sensibilities proved fruitful. 201 They came together in Gothic architecture: the first manifestation of a new "more adventurous and inquiring attitude to technical matters."142 The cathedral at Durham, England, itself showed three major architectural innovations; the ribbed vault, the pointed arch, and the flying buttress. These new engineering marvels were products of new spacial intuitions generated from the study of Euclid and the Arab mathematicians.143 Architectural successes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries depended upon getting the shape geometrically correct rather than upon a successful calculation of the magnitude of forces. The fixed propor- ‘44 With the tions of Euclidian geometry were all that were available. development of new mathematical forms of reasoning, especially after the thirteenth-century, written calculations of forces came to replace the architect's dependence upon geometric methods.145 The geometry of vision was replaced with the calculation of vision. Not theory, but numbers, proved the more effective mode of formulating and presenting the new practical arts.146 Towns, of which there was a growing number in these two centuries, deliberately cultivating this new mathematical approach, were the first harbingers of an attitude that promoted change as a virtue.147 "Regularity, mathematically predictable relationships, and facts quantitatively measurable were looming larger in men's picture of the universe."148 All of these looming concerns were most closely investigated in astronomy and the attendant ideas of time and motion. Of all pre-twelfth century sciences, astronomy alone was linked with mathematics. But though it was obvious to any observer that the stars moved,only speculation into the cause of motion was in vogue. There was no calculation of motion since members were only for classi- fication. Each star had a number which was its "essence." With the 202 new learning from the Arab archives of Spain, Aristotle and his famous 148 commentator, Averroes, became well-known to Europe's astronomers. Aristotle believed the stars moved through the agency of an external 4 force which continually pushed them through the empyrean. The essen— tial nature of a star, for Aristotle, was in its formand matter. The form of a thing took precedence over its matter. That is to say, form structured matter. Form was imposed upon matter. It is a character- istic notion of oral pebples to think the external more powerful than 'the internal. Thus, stars could only move through the heavens because a strong force was continually pushing them. And, of course, the path’ of the stars was circular since that was the "perfect course." 149 Averroes injected a new twist to this cosmography. For Averroes, a star was not just form and matter, "but simply a pure and unique body that receives the form of circular motion directly."150 ‘For Averroes, then, the force acting to push the star through the heavens imprinted form upon the star. Stars did not receive their form and then were ‘ pushed.’ Stars received their form in the pushing. All stars followed the perfect circular path because the same force was pushing and im- printing upon them a common form.‘ Though Averroes'ideas were not widely accepted, they do mark a further stage in the development from the purely static Platonic model of the cosmos to models based more on assumption of essential dynamism. "With the appearance in 1328 of Thomas Bradwardine's Tractatus gg proportionibus (Treatise on Ratiofs) a new and distinctive mathematical approach to the study of motion was inaugurated."]5] Bradwardine’s dis- _tinctive approach to motion was designated the Impetus Theory. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, Aristotle's cosmology was looked upon with increasing skepticism. At this juncture, William of 203 Occam, one of the most penetrating intellects of the day, took up the fight against Aristotle. Occam's nominalism-influenced the mechanics of Bradwardine and others, and encapsulated the most persuasive arguments ‘ever directed against the Aristotelian schools of thought. Chief among these schools were the Mertonians. The Mertonians. more concerned with saving Aristotle's theory than verifying it, countered Occam's thrust with mathematically valid, but purely hypothetical, examples to prove Aristotle was correct. "Occam's'razor" sliced them to ribbons. But Mertonian fancies were not fruitless. Others in Paris,152 Padua, and Salamanca took the new mathematical tools devised by the Mertonian imagination and applied them to nature. Though they did not work, their very failure indicated that the place to look for the force of continuing motion was within an object itself. The Impetus Theory did not concern itself with how stars began to move. It only attempted to illuminate how a star kept moving and to present that motionin mathematical form. The initial motive force might well be external, but the continuing force was internal. Stars were acting under their own power. There was no mysterious force continually pushing them through the sky. The Impetus Theory struck a great blow in favor of the new science of 153 mechanics. It was not long-before the first mechanized machine, the clock, came into being. Time itself was soon to fall to the "mechanical 154 nature" of numbers. Clocks, as images of a new age, were already a 155 part of the new metaphorical equipment of fourteenth-century thinkers. These mechanical clocks, "were far more than toys:~ they were symbols related to the inmost, and often unverbalized, tendencies of the age."156 _ lhese tendencies were to understand and dominate nature. No longer was the world to be a closed book, unapproachable because of its God-created 204 depravity and its position at the bottom of existence. Philosophers and scientists of all kinds set out to read the Book of Nature as it was presented in the language of number, and to ask new questions"within the range of experimental answer by limiting their inquiries to physical rather than metaphysical problems and by concentrating their attention on accurate observation of the kinds of things that are in the natural ‘57 That this late fourteenth and early fifteenth-century out- world." burst was in large part a reaction to cataclysmic convulsions which rocked European society during the previous century, thereby directing attention to what lay behind these natural calamities in an effort to understand and eventually minimize their destructive potential, is no doubt true. But natural adversities were not new to Europe in the fourteenth-century.158 What was new, however, by the fifteenth-century, was a growing confidence in mathematics as the key to unlocking the secrets of nature. And this confidence in number and number relations grew from the initial successes in mathematical astronomy. If the heavens were within the borders of mathematical measure, so must be the earth. In the middle of the fifteenth-century, Nicholas of Cusa accom- plished a philosophical tour de force when he "transformed the scholastic hierarchy of static spheres, of spheres immovably related to one center, the earth, into a universe uniform in substance and without a physical or ideal center. In this new world of infinite relations the incorrup- tible certitude of mathematics assumed unprecedented importance."159 The certitude of mathematics began to replace the certitude of Plato, Aristotle and the Church. The advance of science, indeed of knowledge itself, became rooted in number and measurement, and "it was precisely 205 those branches of science which were most amenable to measurement that showed the most spectacular achievements."160 The ideal of quantification, though most associated with number, nevertheless got a tremendous boost from the supreme technology of quantification,the printing press. For the printing press created a universe of perception and thought that mirrored the celestial universe of Nicholas Cusanus. The infinite and exact repeatability of the printed book created a new uniformity of thought-patterning which was structured in linear sequences. Print created "the public", yet, it encouraged private opinion. It detached reader from author, thereby undermining the authority-structure of oral modes of learning based on interaction, and built a new authority-structure based on erudition. The learned authority ceased to be the one who could compose spontaneously from his innate resources of composition, and became the one who had consumed the opinions of others. Print created a thought-world that was nearly "uniform in substance and without a physical or ideal center." Thus, the new emphasis upon quantity and measure coincided with the appearance of the ideal technology to present the fruits of quantified thought with graphic precision. For, "quantification means the transla- tion of non-visual relations and realities into visual terms, a procedure 16] Therefore, "a reason for the inherent in the phonetic alphabet." development of modern science much more profound and real than the dis- placement of deduction by induction was the shift from the old oral- aural, conversational, disputatious, semianimistic, personalized feeling for knowledge, entailing a proclivity for auditory syntheses, to a feeling for knowledge as aligned with vision much more uneqivocally t."]62 than it had been in the pas The fortunate co-existence of a 206 visually-oriented spirit of mathematical quantification with the tech- nology that could materialize it, proved intoxicating for the fifteenth century. Beauty, itself, was said to be mathematical. This was the underlying philosophy of the Italian Renaissance, as I will show later.163 But the new zest for number and quantity did not just find expres- sion in the starry heavens of astronomy, or the new concern for the passing and harnessing of time, or in the fusion of art with a mathemat- ical measure of proportion and perspective. It was also a medium through which an intense interest in reducing the margin of quantitative error could be voiced. The homogeneity of numbers meant they could expand or contract indefinitely yet remain structurally intact. The new mathematics, "captured both the unity of the cosmos and man's aspirations and role in it. The classification of number resonated with the classifications of daily thought and life. It was a way of making intellectual contact with the essences and potencies which underlay the order of things."164 The essence of the new world was its homogeneity. Number, being infintely extendable in quantity, could also, because of its homogeneous nature, measure with infinite precision. Giganticism and infintesimalism could both be theoretical and practical concerns of the new number relations. By the sixteenth century, this revelry with numbers and measurement, "that was destined to become a characteristic and distin- guishing feature of the contemporary world, was so accentuated that Europe came to occupy for the first time a place apart from both the Near and the Far East."165 New number forms and systems, such as complex numbers, differential geometry, and infintesimal calculus, were fresh expressions of the homo- genizing power that was number. "More neutral than the alphabet, calculus 207 permits the translation or reduction of anykind of space or motion or 166 energy into a uniform repeatable formula." And "imaginary numbers "167 were called for by algebraic problems in the sixteenth century. As the margin of quantitative error became smaller, and as the size of the 168 new developments in universe grew larger than was ever anticipated, geometry and algebra indicated that a new structure of perception and cognition was being built.. The nature of number was becoming progress- ively, near inexorably, more abstract. Number was losing all bodily, even symbolic, form whatsoever. Descartes was the chief exponent of the new, highly visual geometry that was drawn-out of algebraic theory. Descartes formulated a new number-idea which was expressed "in the emancipation of geometry from servitude to optically-realizable construc- 169 Descartes' tions and to measured and measurable lines generally." idea of number was a purely intellectual construction which formalized the study of infinity. Geometrical points became for Descartes, but a group of co-ordered pure numbers. The idea of magnitude and perceivable dimension presented in the Greek and Arab texts was destroyed and re- placed by that of "variable relation-values between positions in space."170 Number as a measure of magnitude was replaced by number as pure relation. Numbers became purely functional. The last vestiges of the classical "essences" of numbers, and any hierarchy of numbers, was stripped away. This emancipation of number from all connections with magnitude meant that, for Descartes and his followers, number was to serve function itself as a unit. It ceased to be the symbol for a fixed numerical relation. Numbers new functions, its new relations, were variable and incapable of being optically defined. "Hence they are not numbers at all in the plastic sense, but signs representing a connexion that is 208 destitute of the hallmarks of magnitude, shape and unique meaning, an "17] Numbers became infinity of possible relations of like character. "pure thought-pictures." Descartes formulated the mathematics of pure homogeneity to repre- sent the universe of pure homogeneity articulated by Cusanas. Against the classical metrical geometry, Descartes placed his perspective geo- metry;and "the differences between metrical and perspective geometry can be traced back to the differences between the tactile-muscular and "172 Visual space intuitions can flourish the visual intuitions of space. best in a homogeneous space, and the mathematics to graph this infinite space had to be homogenized into a system of pure relations. Physical space, to be valid mathematically, had to be reduced, in Euclidian re- enactment, to two-dimensions. "Indeed, essentially it means that natural phenomena must be assumed to take place in the empty space of geometry."173 The space of Descartes contemporary Gassendi, and of Newton was, “so far as geometry was concerned, the space of Euclid: it was infinite, homogeneous, and completely featureless."174 Through the algebraic innovations into geometry, geometry developed a projective dimension on the basis of infinite homogeneous space. By the seventeenth century, Desaurgues had "produced a geometry in which straight lines, parallel lines, and the regular plane curves were re- duced to the same status. There were no longer unbridgeable gaps be- "175 tween the different kinds of lines. Thus, "the mental climate had become altogether different; the world of physical reality had been replaced by mathematical ideality."176 If the geometry of Descartes can be said to be the final mathema- tical form of the medieval cosmography, as opposed in principle as they PLEASE NOTE: Page 209 is lacking in number only. No text is missing. Filmed as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. 210. might be, the algebra of Viéta is_the end result of another famous medieval dispute, the problem of universals. For algebra is concerned with units, or numbers, in universal relation. While for the Greeks, ' "arithmos" was meant to indicate things, for Vieta, and for modern ale- 177 \ gebra, "number" intends a concept, that of quantity. But the tran- sition from thing to concept follows a convoluted path in formal algebra. Through the writings of Leonardo Fibonacci, Alexander of Villa Dei and others, twelfth and thirteenth-centur Europe was introduced to Al- Khowarizmi's Algebra. But it did not seem to capture the European imagination like some of the other Arab and Greek scientific works; ‘78 It should be remembered perhaps because of its advanced reasoning. that Europe had trouble understanding and employing zero, which revolu- tionized European mathematics as it was. However, about 1500 an important work by an obscure third-century A.D. Greek mathematician named Diophantus was translated. ‘According to Jacob Klein, with the introduction of Diophantus work formal algebra ."took off." Diophantus provided a crucial intermediate form of mathe- matical reasoning between the "latent algebraic component in classical "179 and the,more advanced mathematics of the Islamic Greek mathematics scholars. Upon the work of Diophantus and the Islamic scholars was 'built thefirst method of a modern system of algebra. ' Diophantus, logically and mathematically, showed how to generalize the Greek notion of "arithmos" to greater levels than his predecessors had, though he remained tied in some respects to the notion that "arith; mos" indicated specific things. His notions of generalization were derived from his reading of the works of Aristotle, especially Aristotle's theory of "neutral monads," or the "measuring character" inherent within 211 numbers. But Diophantes, though advancing the idea that problems could have general solutions -- a notion completely unknown to most Greek and Roman mathematicians who considered each problem to have only a unique 180 solution -- nevertheless, saw every indeterminacy as the product only of unknown determinants. Diophantus, then, did not substitute "symbolic for numerial values."]8] ‘ ‘ Diophantus major innovation in mathematics was to free the Greek notion of eidos from its connection with Ideal being, and make eidos into an inStrument for constructing a determining, non-immuteable class formation of numbers. In this way, the relation of numbers itself bee came a manipulatable object of thought for Diophantus. This is clearly incipient algebraic reasoning. ~ Vieta, who studied Diophantus closely, provided the first method for "universalizing" any numericalrelation when he introduced a Sym- bol to represent the indeterminate, the general, the numerically un- ‘ representable. This was an extension, to forms of mathematics other than arithmetic, of the principle that infinite number could be bound; aprinciple that first appeared with zero. Whereas zero gave form to "nothing" in the twelfth-century world_of God's plentitude, the intro- duction of a symbol to represent indeterminacy indicated a world of complete‘homogeneity.‘ For the indeterminate to have a symbol, for it to be "plUgged into" formulas calculating usable, determinable results, implicitly meant that indeterminacy, though ontologically unknowable, .was nevertheless, within the functional boundaries of numbers. 'Vieta made algebra and geometry into general techniques for arriving at ansWers to large numbers of problems, thus advancing the idea that a concern for methodological consistency was a most necessary new 212 mathematical virtue to cultivate. Viéta called his technique the "law of homogeneity" to indicate his belief that numbers are a kind of species 182 of Aristotelian "monads." But Viéta's species "are in themselves symbolic formations -- namely formations whose merely potential objecti- "183 The indeterminate, vity is understood as an actual objectivity. the unknown, had become a useable mathematical symbolic object. It had become knowable in mathematical forms of process. Through the elevation of technique to intellectual object, of method to mathematical relation, and that relation represented by a symbol, mathematicians realized that symbols themselves could generate new sym- bols, as relations could generate new relations,leading eventually to an understanding of the relations of relations. "In evolving its own concepts in the course of combating school science, the new science ceased to interpret the concepts of Greek 'arithmos' preserved in the scholastic tradition from the point of view of their natural foundations; rather, it interpreted them with reference to the function which each of these concepts had within the whole of science. Thus every one of the newly obtained concepts was determined by reflection on the total con- text of that concept."184 This was clearly the full emancipation of a dynamic apprehension of the universe from its Platonically static be- ginnings. The notion that movement not rest was pre-eminently the job of mathematics to understand was a bold new approach to the study of number relations. But it proved so powerful a problem-solving metho- dology,that it came close to replacing all Idealistic forms of investi- gation. The entire structure of mechanization is built upon this ability of mathematics to store and translate movement. For the translating of one movement into another is the cornerstone of synchronization in 213 gearing, in moving machine parts, and in timing. It was not long before the movements of human beings were no longer beyond the reach of the mathematics of motion. Men and machines look alike in mathematical formulas. And with the synchronization of men with machines the basis for industrialization begins. Mathematical innovations from the time of the fall of Rome, but especially after the importation of Arab and Greek science, show a pro- gressive orientation toward the visual, the abstract, the homogenous. Space, time, and science all fell to the power of number to translate every kind of sensory experience and assumption into visual terms. But just as importantly, this evolution of mathematical ideas and forms in- dicates a gradual change from modes of thought embodied in signs to modes of thought concerned with symbols. This switch gave rise to "a new kind of generalization which may be termed'symbolic-generating abstraCtion."185 Man, as a species eternally separate and more complex than nature, had come into his own. MONEY "Actually every society that is based on an ancient structure and opens its doors to money sooner or later loses its equilibria and liber- ates forces thenceforth inadequately controlled. The new form of inter- change jumbles things up, favors a few rare individuals and rejects the others. Every society has to turn over a new leaf under the impact."186 Money, as I explained in the previous chapter, is not just an ob- ject which changes hands during the course of economic transactions. Money is a language, like writing and mathematics, with its own rules that structure the relations between people engaged in exchange. Any 214 object can function as money -- cowrie shells, oxen, cakes of tea or salt, coinage -- as long as the syntactic rules of money-language are obeyed. "Money talks because money is a metaphor, a transfer and a bridge. Like words and language, money is a storehouse of communally achieved work, skill and experience."187 But there are levels of standardization in money, as there are within all languages, which, when activated and employed, indicate the degree to which the thought-patterns of a people have advanced toward visual modes of arrangement and structure. The most advanced level of monetary standardization known is the credit-exchange; the exchange of money for money.Credit is the reflexivity of money back into itself in a kind of fiscal implosion that marks the inevitable chiasmic end of any process of explosion. This reversal occurs in all "languages" when they achieve near monopoly. For when a process nears monopoly, that is, when it becomes the "medium" which structures all “eXChanges" -- whether this is exchange of commodities, or thoughts, or quantity and movement, or form is immaterial -- it ceases to be the invisible medium and be- comes an object. We saw this process take place with the introduction of zero into twelfth-century Europe, when zero was said to have "bound number which is infinite as if it were finite." Even more plainly, the process occured with developments in algebra when the infinite arith- metical relation between number could be symbolized with a single letter, e.g. X. And finally, the process occured with the printing press which enabled a PEOPIe "to see itself for the first time."188 Reflexivity also occurs at all stages prior to the advanced stage. Indeed, when a process is seen to operate reflexively, it indicates that a new process is already operating. This is the cleaving together and cleaving apart of innovation. 215 Before credit appeared, the most advanced form of money was coin- age. Coinage enabled regular trade to occur over great distances ‘89 It created the full-blown market economy efficiently and quickly. and gave primacy to exchange-value trading over use-value trade. It brought larger numbers of people together through its homogenizing power, but it divided people according to new divisions. The trans- lating operations inherent within the four metaphorical systems are what bond people together. Innovations in these four systems release new processes of bonding. But these systems are also objects in them- selves. Thus, innovations introduced into them must be preceded by a frame of mind which sees them as objects open to manipulation. Mani- pulation creates the divisive effect and gives power to those who are able to manipulate them toward more general forms of homogeneity. Thus, coinage gave power to its inventors, and then to those who saw advan- tages in extending coinage over greater areas. Every innovation in the four metaphorial systems creates new forms of individuality. Coinage was no exception. Under Constantine, the Roman world had the most advanced monetary system in antiquity. It had an ample gold backing with many kinds of coins, and it dominated a wide area.190 But with the fall of Rome, and the decline of her influence, both in the economy and in the world of learning, the region she had domi- nated was carved up in a scramble for power and resources. Much of the decline of Rome can be attributed to two outside in- fluences: the invasion of peoples from the North, and the invasion of the plague from the East. The population of the Empire declined in the 191 second and third centuries A.D., due to repeated attacks of pestilence. 216 The worst of these occured in 165 A.D., and, in quick succession, from 251-266 A.D.‘gz With her decline in population came a natural decrease in the amount of trade. In the fifth century, the invasion of Gauls, Goths, Visigoths and others destroyed, to a large extent, the-advances made in the fourth century. "Towns suffered severely at the hands of the fifth-century invaders."193 Once again, traders were forced to re- duce their territory and try and rebuild their networks. But the coup de grace was applied by the bubonic bacillus which swept the entire Mediterranean in the sixth century, decimated the population of the empire,194 and halted the Emporer Justinian's policy of reconquenst. Rome was never the same thereafter. The protection her legions had afforded merchants and traders was removed. "Europe," from the sixth through the tenth centuries, was a region at the mercy of outside forces. Not only was she subjected to frequent outbreaks of the plague,195 but also she seemed fair game for any and all marauding peoples. Treading on the heels of the eight-century Muslim horsemen, came Scandinavians from the North and Magyars bursting from the steppes of Asia in the ninth. Arab brigands disrupted costs shipping from their fortified base camps, like the one at Gibralter.196 The collective political clout necessary to dislodge them could never be mustered in the post-Rome era. And due to the atrociously bad trans- portation and communication facilities, bandits could move freely over the interior landscape. The Vikings and the Magyars caught Europe in a devastating pincers movement. "The damage and destruction which they occassioned was at least as great as that caused by the Germanic invaders of the Roman u197 Empire. A disunified Europe proved unable tO-withstand their 217 onslaught., In part, the success of the Norsemen was due to their shallow draught boats which allowed them to navigate up the shallow rivers.198 'By 860, after uninterrupted success, the Viking presence stretched from 199’ In their conquestof Europe, the the Mediterranean to Britain. Vikings opened new land for settlement and commerce and even contributed" to the expansion of trade.' "For a period, trade'along the coasts and 'up the rivers of north-western Europe was entirely in the hands of the Vikings."200 But the Vikings lived by war and conquest, not by administration and trade. Constant War soon depleted their numbers and vigor.‘ By the mid-tenth century the continent was free of them. Attention then fo- cused upon the warlike Magyars who eventually succumed to a mixture of Christiantiy and domestication about 1000 A.D.20] Not everything was disintegrating in "Europe" during this time .thought. Between the sixth and ninth centuries certain innovations in agriculture, like the invention of a heavy plough which could cut through~ and turn over the heavy sod of northwest Europe, the invention of the .harness to inCrease the pulling power of the horse and the ox, and the discovery of three-field Crop rotation and the open field, increased harvest. Together, these enabled enough surplus to be accumulated to 202 allow population to increase. And the increase in population enabled small toWns to grow which provided a measure of "psychological prepara- i tion9_for the urban shift of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.203 Trade relations with Islam across the Pyrannees continUed through- out the early Middle Ages, though they contributed only to the Islamic economy. "By and large, Europe's import of oriental goods was requited by the export of slaves and bullion . . . Europe was the underdeveloped- 218 "204 Except for a brief moment of control, when Charlemagne in- 205 n region. troduced a common currency over his Frankish and Italian lands, gold moved around Western Europe not into it."206 The lack of gold kept cir- culation of coins at a minimum. What coins were minted had to be caSt in silver which became increasingly debased since gold, the international currency, went to Byzantium and the Arab lands. The strongest economy 'in the world belonged to Islam. Everybody elseexisted in a dependency relationship with them except ByZantium and her coldnies.7 Beginning in the ninth and tenth centuries, and lasting until Europe began minting her own coins at a good rate again, all debts in Europe were-calculated by reference to the main international money of Islam. The basis for comparison was determined first in those countries that had direct contact with Arab money-men, Spain and Italy.207 This is an excellent example of a stronger structure of relations, the Islamic monetary structure, dominating and absorbing a weaker structure and forcing it to act in ways dictated by the stronger structure. With Europe in a state of dependency with Islam, with her means of acquisition rapidly falling, and with no reserve captial, there occured "208 There was not a great depression in "the social function of wages. enough currency to hire labor, and not enough outlets for wages to be put to use. Trade internal to Europe became almost exclusively use- value trade. By the yearlOOO, the only growth areas in Europe's economy were Spain and Italy, and they had stronger ties with Mecca and_Byzantium than with the region north of the Alps and east of the Pyrannees. Continental Europe was, however, not motionless. A new religious ferver, brought on by the expected return of Christ sometime around 1000 A.D., 219 roused the people to new activity. And activity is always the best en- vironment for trade and money. "A society with little activity does not attract money, and the lack of money in turn discourages trade."209 But the benefits of this new activity were blunted to an extent in 210 the European interior by an unfavorable natural climate. Italy and Spain prospered not just because of Arab trade, but also because these regions were blessed during this time with good maritime conditions.21] France and Germany, on the other hand, were enduring a dry spell that brought famine to France no less than sixty times during the period 970- 1100 A.D.212 213 The ''little optimum" proved optimal only for sea-faring and the "West," by the tenth century, "seems to have become "214 traders, almost completely unaccustomed to sea-faring. Foremosts among the sea-farers were the Muslims. But from interaction with Muslim traders and trade practices, Europe would relearn the dynamics of coinage, exchange-value trade, and the market economy. Not only can the scholars of Islam be said to have started European science, but also they, with the merchants, can be said to have provided Europe with the intellectual tools that forged the machinery of mercantilism and capitalism. "If Europe finally perfected its money, it was because it had to overthrow the domination of the Muslim world."215 Medieval Islam towered above everyone not only because of her bountiful gold and silver resources, which enabled her merchants to control world trade for centuries, but also. because of her incipient "capitalist" market relations, which, receiving the blessing of no less an authority than the Koran itself, had the effect of remaking the trade relations indigenous to non-Islamic cultures into relations that would benefit the dominant Islamic structure. 220 "Economic activity, the search for profit, trade, and consequently, production for the market, are looked upon with no less favour by Muslim tradition than by the Koran itself."216 Commercial activity had long been a way of life for the tribes of Arabia. But until the advent of Muhammad, and the incredible spread of Islam, these trading practices had been across a limited amount of ter- ritory. Within a hundred years of the death of Muhammad in 632 A.D., however, Islam had spread over most of the Mediterranean region and well into India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This explosion of energy required new trading practices be developed to hold the new empire together. Soon, "economic activities were carried out in a framework of economic roles that were grouped in lasting economic organizations, namely, trading companies, and the structure of relations between these com- panies was in no way 'embedded' in a non-economic context such as the clan."217 The Revelation of Muhammad broke-down the clan and tribal hatreds and barriers that had divided the people of the Middle East for centuries, and welded them into a highly integrated "family" under the banner of Islam. Once this integration had occured, and peace was established, the merchants could travel freely within the borders of Islam, and even beyond. Muslim trading ships and caravans could be found even as far 218 as they surrounded Europe and drained her 9019 north as Scandinavia, supplies. A commercial bourgeoisie, taking shape in the Muslim world in the second century A.H. (718-815), had, by the fourth century A.H., "become a socio-economic factor of the highest importance."219 This commercial bourgeoisie, erected upon the private capital gained from merchant activites not upon state financed commercial enterprises, "was 221 apparently the most extensive and highly developed in history before the establishment of the world market created by the Western European bourgeoisie."220 The "rational" nature of economic activity took over Muslim trade relations. With Muslim gold in abundance, Muslim coinage ruled the commercial world, and disrupted all those "primitive" economies which it penetrated. International prices were fixed according to the Muslim standard. Exchange-value trading flourished in Islamic countries, and because of its greater speed and efficiency, could easily dominate the use-value trading of Europe. Muslim philosophers and students of the economy formalized the study of commerce to discern its natUre. Wage- workers and guild structures appeared in Muslim countries,221 and "all the instruments of credit-bills of exchange, promissory notes, letters of credit, notes, cheques -- were known to the merchants of Islam, whether Muslim or not."222 However, all was not completely harmonious within Islam. Muslim' economic thinkers felt strongly against some of the emerging business practices of the merchants. As was the case in Greece, the merchants were first to recognize the private power coinage bestowed. With their drive to acquire more money, the integration achieved through the agency of Islam threatened to breakdown. Coinage, acting in concert with a 223 always restructures human affairs upon more indi- phonetic alphabet, vidualized relations. In addition, Arab mathematicians were developing algebra, trigonometry and other visually-based mathematical forms. The edifice of Islam was not impervious to these battering-rams of indivi- duation, and the defenders of Islam's "purity" responded with the same ignorance of the dynamics of coinage as the Greeks did. 222 Economics as a theoretical discipline held little interest for Islamic scholars until the translation into Arabic of Greek philosophi- 224 Following the example of cal and scientific thought around 800 A.D. their Greek mentors, Islamic theorists attempted to establish a frame- work of unchanging laws of society. But, in a world of dynamics, un- changing laws could only hamper the elaboration of principles of collec- tive material progress. Under these "laws" many commercial transactions -- usury, invalid hire and partnership, speculation on interest -- were forbidden.225 These prohibitions proved as unsuccessful in medieval Islam as they proved in Hellenic Greece, and as they would prove in Christian Europe. For these legal and moral prohibitions could not withstand the attraction of large profits to be made on the open market. "Long dis- tance trade was the source of all rapid accumulation of money,"226 and there was much profit to be made from Europe. Soon the Muslim prohibitions were mere words frozen in legal statutes. The calculation of potential profits outweighed the calcula- tion of risk. By the time Ibn-Khaldun (1332-1406), who was among the first to be aware of the effects a price system has upon the rate of profit, began calling for the protection of individual initiative from state intervention and competition, the structure of integrated Islam 227 The merchants of Islam had had long since become a part of history. broken from their communal moorings long before. Islam, by the fifteenth century, had become an ineffectual integrating force. Europe, however, had learned well from Muslim traders and thinkers. In the beginning of the twelfth century, an economic revolution swept over the torporous European region and quickly changed the economy of 223 every country within it. This economic revolution, co-terninous with an unprecedented intellectual renaissance, marks a radical overhauling of every level of European society. A new visual intensity was infused into Latin with the development of grammer, new visual assumptions were injected into European philosophy and science with the translation of Greek and Arabic manuscripts, new visually-biased mathematical forms were learned and applied to architecture and the mechanical arts, and lastly, a new money-economy originated in Europe in the twelfth century. "It seems inescapable that it was the progressive development of a money economy with all its implications that changed a rural, agri- cultural, and ecclesiastically dominated Europe into something much closer to a secular civilization, still agricultural but also partly urban and commercial," says Sidney Packard.228 While this is undoubtedly true, it is also true that when money works with writing and mathematics they pack a wallup which can break-open any closed society. We saw this happen in Hellenic Greece and in Arabia. Now Europe was to have her foundations shaken by a bombardment of visually-biased systems of stor- age and translation. About 1050 the European population began to increase with startling rapidity, especially in France and Germany. Much of this expanding population spread eastward into the relatively unpopulated lands of Central Europe, or under the Norman kings, northward into England and southward into Sicily. Most went into the re-making of towns.229 The invasion and colonization of England, Wales and Scotland by the Normans exactly coincided with the Norse invasion of England. These two invasion forces met head-on with the Normans defeating the Norse. But for England, the invasions broke down their urban centers, and their 224 230 cultivated land suffered disastrously.“ Under Norman hegemony, how- ever, things prospered, at least for the Normans, and the population was soon headed upwards again.231 Invaders had long been attracted to England's large supplies of silver and the Normans were no exception. Merchants had made the Nor- mans aware of England's resource, and once it was theirs they set about living a good life from it. They attempted to enrich their coffers even more through imports of silver, and trading tin and corn for sil- ver. But this had a tremendous inflationary effect as the value of silver decreased with each new import,232 and the greater amount of currency percolated rapidly through the population. Wealth became con- centrated in fewer hands as prices shot up. The extravagance of the Court of King John agitated the nobility, who were losing their way of life due to John's bad fiscal policies. Though the King resorted to heavy taxation to generate revenue, little was to be had from an im- poverished populace, the first of Europe to feel the bite of the new money economy. In 1215 John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. The absolutism of kingship had its first casualty. In the Netherlands, however, rapid improvements in the economy occured beginning with the eleventh century urban revolution in manufac- turing. What was new in this process "was that the growth of numerous towns depended on the development of a textile industry systematically aiming at division of labor, standardization, and export."233 The .Netherlands soon acquired a monopoly of the textile market because it could produce woolens faster and cheaper for export than anyone else. The change from vertical to horizontal looms was essential for greater pro- ductivity. But more than technical changes, the Netherlands bolted into 225 the commerical lead because they organized their production process more systematically than other populations. Theirs' was the first con- scious attempt in Europe to organize production upon the capitalist procedures of division of labor and standardization of produce for export.234 The Lowlands were also blessed agriculturally at the same time as their ability to export increased, and for the same reason. "Throughout most of Europe medieval yields of 4 or 5 to 1 prevailed; in the Nether- lands, the average yield-to-seed rationappears to have approached 10 or 11 to 1."235 This huge yield ratio was in large measure the result of the increased rainfall which began early in the thirteenth century.236 This added precipitation swelled the rivers and seas to allow export- carry ships to travel farther, faster, and with more cargo. Textiles were the major item sought by Europeans, and the Netherlands responded to their needs. But the growing population of the Lowlands rapidly used up the small amount of cropland they had, and it was not long before they had to import grain despite their high yields and commercial supremecy. By the middle of the thirteenth century, the economy of the Netherlands was in trouble. Undiminished heavy rainfall interfered with the pro- ductivity of marginal land under cultivation. Small farmers, forced to move to the cities, became "a roaming, depressed, landless class, com- 237 peting for employment." As in England, the Netherlands lacked the understanding of money necessary to master the situation. By the four- teenth century, Flemish urban development was rapidly sinking to its 238 239 lowest ebb. Britain by that time had taken over the woolens trade. The cities of Flanders were racked with "proletarian" revolts.240 226 In Germany, great events occured which were to affect the entire economy of Europe. "The first great period in the history of mining among the Western peoples began around 1170, with the discovery of the rich silver-bearing ores of Freiburg in Saxany."241 The German peoples had been great miners of iron-ore since the ninth century, and their colonial movements in the twelfth century went hand in hand with mining and the search for more ore. With the tremendous increase of silver- production. three processes began to take shape, all of which were linked with the recovery of statutory Roman law. The German emperor pressed claims to share in the revenue of all the gold and silver mines in his domain. He used the revival of Roman law "as a basis for apply- ing attributes of the Roman imperial authority to feudal conditions, for asserting that feudal overlordship everywhere belonged to the em- peror."242 Since mines which operated during Roman times belonged to the Roman emperor by law, the German emporer asserted these same rights belonged to him. This served to temporarily stifle the initiative of individuals and private investors. With the new inventions that suc- ceeded in driving shafts deep into the earth, expenses grew rapidly. Soon,only the richest groups could afford the capital outlay. The miners reacted by instituting codes to govern their activity, first in Bohemia in 1249. Later the idea of "guilds" spread to all the mines. Miners, using Roman law against the encroachments of the emperor, achieved a measure of self-government over their affairs. The cleaving apart initiated by the introduction of visual Roman law took on a new look in Europe with the social movement of the German miners. With the position of the miners upon a comparatively free, individuated footing, "the social status of the miners and metallurgical workers was generally 227 as high as that of the citizens of the rising towns," in France and Germany.243 But a third process, more wide-ranging than the struggles for power in France and Germany, manifested itself when the mining industry began producing on a large scale. This was the general rise in prices. The injection of large amounts of gold and silver bullion into the economies of continental Europe completely overthrew their fiscal policies and standards. By the thirteenth century every economy in Europe was in an inflationary spiral. The growth of population coupled with the increase of bullion for minting coins meant that the value of the coins was de- creasing at the same time as they were changing hands at faster rates. This can only spell increased prices. More coins were minted to try and re-establish equilibrium, but this decreased the value of currency even further. But, while money was decreasing in value as a unit of exchange, its value as a means of paying off debts waslincreasing.244 The lords experienced increased difficulty in collecting debts through labor-services and there appeared some early forms of wage labor by the end of the twelfth-century. . Agriculture was hit the hardest by this price increase of the late 245 twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But agriculture was also operating under the oppressive burden of heavy rains and cold temperatures. The 246 Most 247 "little optimum" had ended. The "Little Ice Age" had started. of the advancing economic forces of continental Europe were slowed. Only the Italian economy flourished and became the economic center of Europe. Out of Italy came the Roman law which was to regulate the maritime and industrial affairs of Europe for centuries. And flowing through 228 Italian cities came the goods of Arab merchants from the East, and the Crusaders from the West. Accompanying both of these came money. Money of all currencies, and gold and silver heading for the Levant. From this welter of mixed currencies emerged new forms of banking -- bills of exchange, credit, double-entry bookkeeping -- learned from the mer— 248 But also from the mix of currencies came the chants from the East. necessity for a standardization of currency. This was precisely the same process that occured in the sixth and fifth century B.C. Aegean. The movement of peoples with their goods and currencies eventually brings standardization to simplify the exchange-process. A homogeneous European market was in the making. In 1252, Genoa and Florence reintroduced gold currency to Europe. Only the Italian cities could have attempted this since they were the only centers of Europe whose gold supply was not flowing out to the mid-east and Spain.249 But this is not to say the Italian cities had a lot of gold. With the introduction of gold currency, speculation -- the specter of indi- viduality again! -- occured because of bi-metallism. State budgetary deficits added to Italian troubles after the minting of gold. Credit was increased and extended with little thought for collateral. Devalu- ation became a regular practice. It was not long before the commercial supremecy of the cities deteriorated.250 Economies which depend upon commerce are easy prey for any changes in currency. The Italian city- states, seeking to improve and strengthen their position with gold, found its appearance to be destructive of the very economy they were masters of. That economy was based on silver, and as long as the Italian states functioned as middle men between the strong gold-based economy of 229 Islam and the weak silver-based economy of Europe, she was in a privi- leged position compared to Europe. Once she introduced bi-metalism, she discovered she had not the gold resources necessary to manage the ruinous inflation which inevitably occured, nor the understanding to know why. The Italian economists thought gold would serve better than silver in a silver-based economy. That is, they thought gold could simply replace silver and the economic structure of relations would remain intact. All innovations are initially used to do old purposes. But gold released a wave of individuality that eventually broke apart the economy of Italy. This new wave of individuality in twelfth and thirteenth-century Europe was, like the individuality released in Hellenic Greece, moti- vated by a concern for profit. And this commercial impiety brought forth a torrent of denunciatory literature from the church. "The sub- stitution of avarice for pride as the leading male vice reveals the clerical reaction to commercialization in the twelfth century."251 The rising influence of the profit motive called forth a new theology of economics. The teachings of the "just price" as corres- ponding exactly to the cost incurred in materials and labor was grudg- inglyckmnlished in favor of a new teaching of the "just price." By the end of the twelfth century, "just price" was virtually equated with the current market price, thus allowing no fraud, but acknowledging the 252 The new power of the market to arrange the teachings of the church. introduction of gold, contact with the advanced societies of Byzantium and Arabia via the Crusades, the great influx of silver,and growing population, all worked to activate the European economy during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By the beginning of the fourteenth 230 century a commercial revolution was occuring. Trade routes, populated no longer by itinerant merchants but by merchant couriers and common carriers, criss-crossed Europe from Italy to the Netherlands. New forms of partnership grew. Europe was, in short, developing strong exchange- value trading relations and leaving behind her limited use-value trade. And as Sheila Delany says, "Perceptually, experientially, the world changes when exchange-value replaces use-value."253 The fourteenth century marks in many ways a watershed in European history. Not only did capitalist institutions develop and gain power; and wealth become concentrated in the hands of the growing urban commercial bourgeoisie, but also, the European populace was repeatedly assailed by natural disasters of unprecedented duration and severity which nearly demolished the economic advances made during the previous two-hundred years. These two processes are in no way unrelated. Instead, nature acted to accelerate the process of wealth concentration which eventually restructured the economy of Europe. By 1300 Europe was overpopulated. Her 73 million inhabitants254 could not all be fed, clothed, housed and employed properly. Prices, already climbing from the exhange of bullion and coin, continued upward as the Germans, French, and English extracted still more silver ore from their mines. Huge profits could be made in the long-distance grain trade and in corn speculation.255 Much of Europe's gold and silver bullion was still exported to the strong economy of Islam. Marginally productive land was under cultivation as the population endeavored to feed itself. The poor roamed the countryside and the cities. Malnutri- tion was prevalent. Europe was ripe for disaster and it did not take long to arrive. England and France were hit earliest and perhaps hardest. 231 "In the first half of the fourteenth century the rainfall seems to have been considerable not only in Western and Central Europe but also well into the East."256 Accompanying this increased rainfall were colder temperatures with the decade 1312-1319 marking the time when some of the worst weather in Europe's history was lashing the land. A great famine occured throughout Europe during the years 1315- 1317.257 All Europe's rivers flooded. The ground was turned to soup from the unremitting rains. Corn and other grains had little chance of surviving in this kind of weather. Englands yield ratio fell from a 258 The continent was normal 4/1, to 2.5/1 in 1315, and 2.1/1 in 1316. similarly affected. Harvest in England had not been good for several years prior to 1315, and with the devastation of her crops in successive 259 England was thrown into years, surplus grain was entirely consumed. a social chaos that was aggravated by rising prices and war. The price of all commodities had risen significantly in England in the period 1305-1310 as a result of the huge amounts of silver arriv- ing from the woolens trade, and of the glut of silver-ore extracted from 260 By royal interdict silver was not allowed to leave English mines. the country, though smuggling did occur. This disasterous series of events had the most pronounced effects upon agricultural production, which began to decline in the wake of the price rise. Around 1310, in the midst of this already precarious economic situ- ation, the King imposed a war situation upon England, perhaps to relieve the economic and psychic tensions. The War, though, required taxes. These proved unavailable in large enough quantities due to the rising prices and shrinkage of land under cultivation. Into the thick of this turmoil sped the torrential rains of the early fourteenth century. In 232 quick order, England lost upwards of 10% of her population to famine, war and epidemics.261 Things were no different on the continent. With the rains, cold, and ruinous crop yields social solidarity evaporated. Brigands roamed the countryside. Crime escalated in the cities. Food became so scarce in some places that cannabalism broke out.262 In 1335 or so England and France began the Hundred Years War and put their economies on permanent war alert. Deflation resulted, which only increased the woes of the populace, and lasted for more than a 263 decade till 1351. By 1350, the population of Europe had shrunk by one-third to about 50 mi11ion.264 But the major reason for this great decline was not due directly to heavy rains, famines, brigands, or even war, though they all played their evil parts. In 1348 a new creature came to Europe from the middle east, the black rat. This in itself was nothing remarkable. But the black rat carried a passenger who was to help change the course of European history. A little flea, who thrived in the environment of Europe, and who carried in his body the plague. From its homeland in the Himalayan foothills, through the Crimean and into Europe the plague had left a path of death and sorrow.265 Europe was in no way prepared for it in 1348. Nor can it be said Europe was any better prepared for its outbreak at later times. It spread with astonishing rapidity through the population and once contracted left little chance for survival.266 In its first course through Europe in the late 1340's, no less than 25% of the population succumbed.267 In subsequent passages, in 1360, 1369, and 1375, substantially more of the population died.268 But for the survivors there were some benefits to be derived from this slaughter. "Inherited property became concentrated in a few hands 233 immediately after the Black Death. Only good land was cultivated. The 269 Out of standard of living and real earnings of the survivors rose." this grab for good land, and with increasing wages, there arose a new class of rich peasants who were "able to hire labour, the higher cost of which was offset by his diminished rent payments. The poorest, with little or no land to cultivate, were obliged to sell their services."270 The gap between the rich and the poor widened as the class structure of Europe became more polarized and caught-up in a purely monetary economy. The numbers of wealthy merchants and land-owners grew, but so did the number of poor. And importantly, class structure was ceasing to be built around traditional labour-service upon the land, that is, upon the legal framework of the demense, and was being pushed into a new wage-structure relation. The transition from feudalism to capitalism, "from a system of social relations where monetary arrangements are secondary and subordinate, to one in which money plays a major roleJ'271 was given a tremendous acceleration with the collapse of demense farming in the late fourteenth century. A scarcity of labor will generally increase compulsory measures to tie labor to the land and enhance its obligations. This happened in the fourteenth century, but this new emphasis to keep labor on the land con- flicted with the higher wages to be made as a free worker. In order for the lords to compete they had to institute wage labor relations. With good land available and rich peasants hiring, with profits to be made in trade now that fewer merchants were in competition, wage labor was the only procedure the lords could employ if they wished to keep their workers on the land.272 But keeping workers on the land and keeping them happy were not the same thing. A class war of sorts ensued between the new wage workers 234 and the new employers, who were, in reality, but the old demense laborers and lords dressed up in new monetary clothes. Peasant revolts occured across Western Europe in the late fourteenth century.273 Urban workers, feeling the sorry effects of rising commercial prices generated by a manipulation of currencies which devalued their wages, and growing into guilds de- signed as much to limit the power of commercial trade-companies as to protect themselves and their continued employment from encroaching ele- ments willing to work for less wages, rose up in a number of insurrec- tionary movements.274 Working against the inflation were the German mines, which went into a steep decline in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, perhaps due to lack of workers and an overload of rainwater which overwhelmed their pumps. Their decline resulted in less silver for minting coins -- the majority was still shipped to the coffers of Islam -- which slowed down currency exchange. This brought prices down to some extent all over Europe, but especially in agriculture with its new high per capita output.275 Most of Western Europe was locked in a strong adversary confronta- tion between the rising commercial bourgeoisie, the landed aristocracy, and the wage-worker. Violent fluctuations occured in its economy which, after the great famines and the invasion of the plague, was slowly,» unevenly,building a new foundation upon the bedrock of money relations. But the old agrarian structure was still strong, and by the end of the century the new foundation was far from consolidated. Not enough was known about the revolutionary effects of money to predict what European society would look like on a purely money basis. Inevitably, one of its first effects was to bestow new life upon feudalism. "There seems, in 235 fact, to be as much evidence that the growth of a money economy per se, led to an intensification of serfdom as there is evidence that it was the cause of feudal decline."276 This was however, but a transitory phase of the switch to a full- fledged money economy that would emphasize spending and individual initiative. For "amongst the psychological consequences of the-plague was an orgy of spending, and the later Middle Ages became an age of personal ostentation and conspicuous consumption. The structure of demand became more fluid."277 While personal ostentation and conspicuous consumption can exist in agrarian societies, a fluid structure of demand is entirely the pro- duct of a money based market-economy. The leaders of this emerging dominant market-system were the trading firms of the cities, especially of Italy. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the population of Europe stood around 45 million. By 1500, that figure had jumped to 69 mi11ion,278 the majority of whom went to live in the burgeoning cities of Europe hoping to find employment. But this proved difficult. For the cities were by and large under the control not of the church, but of chartered trading companies by the mid-fifteenth century. These new legal entities, "composed entirely of traders as distinct from craftsmen and endowed by their charters with exclusive rights over some particular branch of trade,"279 were only open to those with money to buy their way in. And they kept careful watch over their positions and their monopolies. In the craft-guilds the situation was much the same. Craft-guilds sought to monopolize opportunities for their own employment through legal and other "persuasive" mechanisms. Entry into the guilds was bottlenecked 236 by long-apprenticeships, high standards of excellence, and a limited number of outlets. In the countryside, things were only a little better. With a popu- lation density approaching that of the early fourteenth century, "intense conflict over title to agricultural lands spread through the European 280 In this too, the poor and unlearned economy from Spain to Russia." in the law were exploited. Class cleavage widened in both town and country. For the rich and prosperous there were huge amounts of profit to be made, especially in long distance trade. For the poor and needy, there was only more poverty and need. But if for most of Europe the fifteenth century was alot like the fourteenth century, only better or worse depending upon one's social position, in Italy very new things were happening beginning with the Renaissance around the middle of the century.281 A new method was initiated in the production of material goods which would revolutionize every economy with which it came in touch, mechanization; the welding together of money and mathematics. The Italian merchants had been the first to see the advantages Arabic numbers and number theory would bestow upon commercial trans- Vactions and banking practices.282 This innovation, as intellectually profitable as it was commercially valuable, provided the foundation for mechanization. Mechanization, as an approach to understanding the nature of the world means, "experiment as the source of knowledge, mathematical formulation as the descriptive medium, mathematical deduction as the guiding principle in the search for new phenomena to be verified by ex- perimentation."283 And mechanization as method of producing material goods, "means dissecting work into its component operations. Mechaniza- tion is the end product of a rationalistic view of the world.“284 237 The process of dissecting work into its component operations and reconstructing these operations to produce material goods requires a mathematics that will measure motion. This mathematics, as we know, was available by the mid-fourteenth century, but the Italians were the first to harness that mathematics to the motion of machines and workers engaged in production. Mathematical forms and processes, in fact, were gaining importance in all areas of Italian society during this time. And this emphasis upon mathematics, in leaque with money and print, generated new forms of cognition and perception, and a new outlook upon time, the material world, and upon work itself.285 Mechanics was the first branch of knowledge to be funded on strict mathematico-empiricism. A new class of practitioners seized the reins of history and guided her into the workshops, arsenals, and studios of the.mechanics. Artist-engineers, painters, sculptors, and architects invented new tools, built canals and locks, and designed and constructed fortifications to keep towns safe. A related class of instrument makers supplied navigators, geodesists, astronomers and musicians with improved precision instrumentation. Clock-makers, cartographers and military technicians all took up the use of mathematics to build more accurate clocks, to draw accurate maps, and design more accurate and durable cannon. The entire economy of Europe was given a tremendous shove ibrward to a new level of production. Everyone had to respond to the dynamism of Italy or face regression and perhaps extinction. Coupled with the awesome productive power of mechanization came a new concern for time, money and property. For money could buy property, whether land or commercial property, and property could best be put to use to generate more capital. Time became of the essence as a wave of 238 competition swept through Europe in response to Italy. Everything be- came more mobile, more fluid. As Alfred von Martin claims, "Money capital and mobile property naturally linked up with the kindred power of time for, seen from that particular point of view, time is money . . . Money and time imply motion. Money because it circulates, as landed property cannot, shows how everything became more mobile. Money because it can change one thing into another brought a tremendous amount of unrest into the world. Only now was formulated the new interpretation of time which saw it as a value, as something of utility. It was felt to be slipping away continuously."286 For almost one hundred years Europe enjoyed an unparalled pros- perity. Prcies fell throughout Europe between 1450-1500 as the amount of goods in circulation steadily increased. Commercial-mercantilism favored the maritime countries like Italy, and later Portugal and Spain. Between 1460 and 1540 southern Europe also showed increases in both soil yield and cattle, added to their commercial wealth, and became leaders in almost every area of the European economy.287 During this time, Europe finally broke the stranglehold of Islam and was able to reverse the flow of gold and silver bullion. The new commercial awakening sent ships to Africa and North America in search of bullion to add to the growing output from the revived mines of Germany. Population was still shooting up, reaching 78 million by 1550, a figure which surpassed that of the early fourteenth century overpopu- lation crisis. But with greater sources of wealth about, the extra population had a better chance of finding means to live than had existed two hundred years earlier. But the very indications of success -- more money in circulation from increased imports and mining of bullion, more commercial wealth 239 from global shipping expeditions, advancing production in the workshops and factories -- carried dangers with them which were to break upon Europe in a thunderous crescendo that would again rock the edifice of European society. Out of this turmOil only Englandwould emerge rela- tively unscathed, while Portugal, Spain, and Italy would be shattered. The age of industrial capitalism would soon dawn, but prior to its coming the long dark night of the late sixteenth century would have to be endured. 'Paradoxically, though the attempts to extend the hombgeneous money economy of Europe to new regions of the globe generatedthe crisis, only the strength of that economic structure would see Europe through.- ~The quest for silver and gold, leading first to Africa then to the North American continent, proved highly successful. Spanish and Portu- guese explorers were the first to begin fUnneling goodly amounts of treasure into Europe. Initially, the flow of bullion stimulated the European economy, for money in quick circulation always generates more 288 When the flow continued unabated for some wealth -- up to a point. decades however, the economy proved less able to absorb it. Prices rose _in order to re-establish equilibrium with the money supply, and con- tinued to rise so long as the money supply continued to increase. By 1550, the"price revolution“ was doing violence to the entire European economic structure.289 The hardest hit sector was agriculture. But this was not due solely to theinflationary effects of gold and silver. The weather turned unfavorable after supporting the affairs of European farmers for nearly 200 years. 1 1 'A kind of dress rehearsal for the late sixteenth century drama was held from 1527-1929. Cold and heavy rains brought catastrophic wheat harvest to England, France and other temperate regions of Europe.290 240 Urban unrest, fanned by religious hatreds and rivalries, which were to last for centuries, swept through many European cities. But these years represent but a transitory dislocation in the affairs of men compared to the upheavals which began about 1550. The glaciers were again ad- vancing. The famines of 1527-1529 were the first indications of a new cold wave. "Everywhere, from Italy to Switzerland, England to Languedoc, §.29l winters grew severer from 1540-1550 onward . Harvest yields began to decline, and in 1556 an international crop failure was overcome only 292 The decade 1555-1974 was filled with by the barest of margins. disaster however. Frost and snow killed the hardy olive trees 4 times in this period, and the hot sumners of 1571-1574 crippled wheat pro- duction.293 The great graneries of the Mediterranean basin were emptied to feed the groaning populations of the north. In the remaining decades of the century the flow of grain was reversed as the cold invaded the Mediterranean and decimated crops.294 The snowy winters and cold summers of 1580-1600 increased the glaciation. Wheat was scarce in France from 1594-1597, and even England felt the crunch.295 The difficult decades of the last half of the sixteenth century caused the prices of food to skyrocket far beyond the increasing prices of commercial and manufactured goods. This huge increase in food prices, more than any other reason, was the crushing blow dealt to the southern European economy which had to import vast amounts of grain. After 1560, the centers of European trade switched from southern Europe to England, 296 but the market-structure remained. the Netherlands and Scandinavia, But factors besides climate were operating to aggravate the economic dislocation initiated by the huge increase of bullion. Agricultural 241 production‘was undergoing new developments with the enclosure movement. City merchants were investing extensively into manorial estates to im- prove the land worked by hired labor, and reaping huge profits from .diminished wages and increased rents.297 As climate in the fourteenth century worked to accelerate the process of class division by putting farm labor on a wage-labor basis, so the climatic invasions of the six- teenth century widened and deepened thatdivision. Profits made in grain speculation and in the hoarding ofprecious metals were siphoned off by those who already had money. While those who started with little, found themselves with even less in the face of rising prices placed on diminishing food supplies. The real income of wage-labor decreased rapidly to a level that was only 40% that of the fifteenth century.298 Unemployment and soCial unrest became chronic problems in the cities ’ and the new, centalized industries in need of workers dipped easily into . this continually growing army of unemployed.299 But the decrease in .wages,'coupled with growing unemployment, onlyserved to drive wages down even further. This forced a debasing of the currency on a number of occasions. In turn, investments rose as a strategy to generate employment, profits and capital for further investment. But only the richest could afford new cash outlays for investment. All these factors —- increase in bullion, climatic disasters, hoarding, rising prices especially in agriculture, decrease in wages, social unrest, increasing population, growing power of monopblies and speculation on grain -- worked to dismantle a prosperous economy. By the end of the sixteenth century, the economy of the Continent was still ifluctuating. But at least the fluctuations were not so violent. In England, however, the situation was not so bad. -Though England was troubled by its own internal class collisions, it was not hit as 242 hard as the continent by the horrible weather. Thus, she remained com- paratively unaffected by the cold and the rain. But other movements occured in England during this time which were to prove important for the further development of her economy: A development which was to catapult her into the economic leadership of the entire world. "Great Britain had participated less than most continental countries "300 But when she did in the industrial development of the Renaissance. decide to industrialize, there was no outdated methods of production to clear away before new methods could be introduced. Great Britain started industrialization afresh. But her industrial movement was preceeded by an agriculture revolution that concentrated her wealth into a small group of financiers. After Henry VIII dissolved the English monasteries in 1536-9, religion in England was thrown into a turmoil. Properties belonging to the monasteries were dispossessed and a major portion of this property came on the market where it was purchased by individuals of private 301 Private enterprise took over the manage- wealth, and by the Crown. ment of this land, much of which was rich in coal and iron ore. Thus, one effect of the Reformation in England was to place valuable mineral and land resources in private hands. In addition, with the decline of the influence of the Catholic Church and the assertion of the right of Anglican priests to marry, population, which was increasing very quickly anyway,302 was given an added impetus. "There were more persons than before without property or a settled occupation, and who had to find work in urban industries like sugar refining, coal mining, salt manu- facture and glass.303 If iron and coal fueled the English industries, the profit motive fueled the Englishman. But, "the direct forces behind industrial 243 capitalism are to be found . . . not only in the spirit of capitalism but in a novel emphasis on quantity as the principle purpose of produc- tion and on precise measurement and mathematical statement as the major methods in scientific inquiry."304 England, in the wake of the disastrous last decades of the sixteenth century upon the continent, took the lead in experimental procedures. Her scientists excelled those of all other nations in the invention of new technologies to assist the industrial effort, and her use of mathe- matics in mechanized production was more fully developed than even that of Italy's.305 Her increased industrial capacity allowed her to build enough ships to overrun the fleet of Holland and gain rule of the seas. Once again money and mathematics worked together to give the initiative to those who would blend them.306 In short, England succeeded because of a number of factors. She was not crushed by the climatic horrors of the century. Her population increase could be put to use in the urban factories. She was rich in iron ore and coal, the two most valuable minerals in early modern in- dustry. Her scientists, unafraid of mathematics and fired with a love for practical knowledge, became pre-eminent in their fields. She broke with communal oriented Catholicism and became strongly Protestant. She enjoyed a strong government that worked with the great financiers and landed gentry to propel the economy forward. She, after a time, ruled the seas. All these worked to the benefit of England, Other countries which may have enjoyed some advantages could not long compete with the growth of England. The evolution of a money-economy in Europe is a long and convoluted affair and I have not done justice to the many factors involved in it. 244 Nevertheless, enough has been searched out that the broad pattern of the effects of monetary innovations and reforms can be discerned. The language of money is complex. It is intimately tied up with the human environment, and, to a degree perhaps greater than the other metaphorical systems, is subject to the changes of that environment. But to converse with money requires that its syntactic structures be learned. Changes in population most directly affect the structure of money relations. The more people that exist, the greater the oppor- tunities for trade and exchange, and money is only valuable in exchange. Any alteration in the human environment which increases the number and speed of exchange-relations -- more people, mild climate, high employ- ment, good supply of precious metals,faster transportation -- strengthens the structure of money relations. As money continually operates to integrate more diverse cultures over a wider geographical area in a single unified system of relations, it becomes a more generalized, homo- geneous and abstract system of translation and storage. When pure exchange-value relations come to take precedence in trade, this marks a crucial stage in the growth of abstract, homogeneous visual structures in the language of money. Visual structures in money are stengthened whenever mathematics, which is the mother-structure of money, is combined with it. New inno- vations in mathematics almost always impact on the structure of money. Those countries who most successfully reunite money with mathematics can derive important advantages from this marriage. The Islamic civili- zation, then Spain and Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, then Italy alone in the fifteenth century, and finally, England in the six- teenth century, all manifested this process, and all took the lead in 245 economic affairs. That their spurts were also due to other factors is obviously true. But the fact remains, these cultures did the integra- ting, and these cultures forged into the economic lead. Thus, in money the development of visual structures did not occur in vacuo, but in conjunction with movements toward broader visual con- structions in mathematics, language, and from the middle of the fif- teenth century, in art, as I will show. Each intersected with the others, were combined and interlocked to raise an architecture of thought that was progressively more rational, homogeneous, and domi- nated a wider landscape. ART "Now the Roman Empire is the bottleneck through which the vintage of the past has passed into modern life. So far as European civiliza- tion is concerned the key to history is a comprehension of the mentality of Rome and the work of its Empire."307 The mentality of Rome was visual, and the work of much of its Empire was the development and extension of a visual bias into new arenas of human endeavor. "The Romans extended lineality and homogene- ity into the civic and military spheres, and into the world of the arch 308 and enclosed or visual space." Visual space is space that is bound, that is homogeneous, that has discrete objects within it which are re- lated by a unified system of fixed ratios and lines. It was unknown 309 before the Romans. But starting in the Augustan period, "there seems to have been a vague intuitive feeling or groping for unified spaces."310 These gropings not only found expression in Roman archs 311 and colonnades, but also in the grid method of land division. In 246 addition, the visually-minded Romans built roads, created a stable currency, established grammer as a part of school curriculum, and studied the Greek mathematicians. But with the fall of Rome, most of this visuality was lost. In the sixth century, Isidore of Seville had no scholarly peer. His writings were to dominate the thought of Europe for centuries. But the world of Isidore was little different than it had been for the Greeks. All things were self-subsistent and discontinuous. The uni- verse was, "astonishingly static; the lack of movement and change can hardly be exaggerated."312 The world as perceived by Isidore, and presented in his writings, carried little speculation upon movement. He only attempted to des- cribe his world not explain it. With no account of motion, there was only essential hierarchy, not cause and effect relations of process. For Isidore, and consequently for his followers, there were no relations between objects, no awareness of development, no understanding of in- teriority. The medieval perception of nature was of a "brooding power, blind, inscrutable, and habitually malicious." Because of this inscru- tability, "the medieval chronicler, like his contemporary medieval scientist, had no sense of the world as interrelated causal process."313 Change was simply one object working upon another and inducing an alter- ation of substance in the receiving object -- it became another object. The visual idea of continuity was entirely lacking. Perception was ruled by oral assumptions. Life was simply a series of unrelated events. But the famous twelfth-century innovations were to eventually change all that. The ancient splitting of Latin into the visualist 247 grammerians and the oral rhetoricians,had its counterpart in the twelfth- century splitting of the chronicles into the visual aristocratic narra- 314 The aristocratic narratives tives and the oral clerical narratives. mark the beginning of a new literary form. When the Arab and Greek manuscripts became available to the con- sciousness of "Europe," only those who could read were able to take advantage of their availability. And those who could read were, except in Italy, the upper class. As I have tried to illuminate, the world- view presented in these manuscripts is much more visual than anything existing in Europe. But more than just a philosophical world-view built upon visual assumptions, Arab mathematics embodied the most advanced ideas of the time on movement, continuity, and cause and effect. These ideas were to slowly penetrate the European mind and reorganize its psychic structure. The twelfth century was the first.century since the sixth to face the challenge of inventing, or discovering, some single system of thought to reunite a fragmenting cosmos. Systematic thought is inherently re- lational. It attempts to reveal how things change through causal pro- cesses. "To perceive the world in causal processes is to limit the "315 kinds of relationships we can see between different events. For the oral-biased Middle Ages, there were no causal processes because they had no method for selecting out from the welter of forces those that appeared most important, then reconstructing the world according to some hierchical relationship between forces. Discrete points can be related either by an infinite number of relations, or by only one relation. There was no in-between. One and infinity, however, act in the same manner to create a static universe,since both indicate a lack of discriminating power. 248 For orally-biased people there is at best only a vague awareness of a relationship between immediately contiguous events. There is no appre- hension of forces acting at a distance. The ability to discriminate between forces which are able to act at a distance, with the force able to effect change at the greatest distance being the most powerful force, is visual. This discrimination was not present in the clerical chron- icles. "The world of nature and the world of man were seen through the same perceptual modes by the chronicler writing in the clerical tradi- "316 "Sequence of tion: the shape of history was the shape of nature. action -- the fundamental connection between two entities for the historian -- did not exist. It was not a part of their perceptual equipment."317 Action for the clerical chronicler did not originate in a preceeding situation, but intruded, erupted, into the present situation from somewhere outside of it. Human actions and the actions of nature were just an endless series of disturbances in the placid natural order of the universe. But for the aristocratic chroniclers, those imbibing the ideas of Islamic scholars and Greek philosophers, the literary chronicle was changing. In contrast to the clerical narrative, which was always endeavoring to force its story into static, self-limiting, fundamentally antitemporal, relationships, "an aristocratic narrative establishes a real temporal connection between its elements; as a consequence, there is a kind of swing to these narratives, a forward movement."318 Aristocratic chroniclers, primarily concerned with narrating con- tinuous action, poured a steady stream of connectives into their writings to present their new ideas. Conflict did not have a structure of its own, but was always part of the larger story surrounding it, 249 preceeding it, and continuing it. This new literary form was tied directly to the rebirth of Aristotelian ligc, to new time conceptions emerging out of the mathematics of motion, and to science. Other arts, such as architecture and painting, showed the same groping for new forms of expression. The Gothic cathedrals, with their new spacial arrangements garnered from the geometry of Euclid and others, represented an early working-out of visual structures in architecture. In painting, the mathematics of perspective was at least known by the 319 Painters presen- fourteenth century, though it was little employed. ted their events within the geometric space of abstract homogeneity. Pictures were painted on the same model as that of ancient Greece. Figures were all the same size no matter where they appeared on the canvas, and objects were painted as if they were all on the same level. This particular arrangement was used not just because medieval painters lacked perspectivist techniques. This arrangement best presented the equidistance of all temporal objects from God. God dominated the men- tality of medieval Europe, and all things temporal, being finite, would appear infinitely removed from Him. Perspective, however, meant man not God was the viewer of the canvas. Such a materialist notion was not acceptable to painters prior to the Renaissance. But in the fifteenth century men began to look more directly and with more favor upon the material world. And with this new emphasis upon investigating and understanding nature, there appeared novel forms of artistic expression which embodied the "renaissance? of the spirit of life. These new artistic expressions found their inspiration from mathematics.320 The Italian merchants were the first Europeans to apply Arabic numbers to commercial and banking practices. Italian artists, though 250 not the first to grasp the implications of the new mathematics in artistic practices, extended and developed them. But the Renaissance was, like every "revolutionary" time, a curious blend of old and new, with the interjection of the past into the present generating the crea- tive abrasion to give shape and outlets to new impulses and shadowy ideas. On one hand, "the Renaissance, when studied without preconceived ideas, is found to be full of elements, which were characteristic of the “32] while, on the other, "within the medieval spirit in its full bloom, terms of a new conception of the world the whole structure of classical aesthetics was systematically broken up, and in this process man's vision underwent a decisive change."322 The two most important ideas in Renaissance artistic expression were perspective and proportion. These were employed to translate the medieval auditory mathematical relations of harmony and meter into visual terms.323 Renaissance art, most notably architecture, received its creative urge from this translation process. Many Renaissance architects regarded "as the particular 'virtue' inherent in architecture the possibility of materializing in space the 'certain truth' of mathematics."324 That certain truth was fixed pro- portion. Renaissance architecture, growing upon the intellectual soil of Pythagoras, Plato and Vetruvius, was given theoretical form by Alberti. For Alberti. beauty consisted "in a rational integration of the propor- tions of all parts of a building in such a way that every part has its absolutely fixed size and shape and nothing could be added or taken "325 Renaissance archi- away without destroying the harmony of the whole. tecture revived, or better rediscovered, Roman enclosed or visual space; the concern for internal harmony between parts of a whole and between 251 each part and the whole. It is the architectural counterpart to the concern for maintaining the internal relations between parts of the human psyche, a concern we label rationality. It is not surprising, then, that Renaissance architects thought they had manifested the essence of interior human rationality in the fixed ratios of their build- ings. To uplift the human mind and spirit became a religious drive for many of them, with the fixed proportions of their buildings becoming the new alter. They, like the Greeks befbre them, enthroned visuality as the only "true" ruler of the intellect. Thus, Renaissance architecture required "simple shapes, plain walls and homogeneity of articulation."326 The advances and successes of the architects spurred the practi- tioners of other arts and "mechanical occupations" to new heighths of expression and form. Taking their lead from the mathematical theory of Alberti, Palladio, and others, painters and sculptors, in order to raise their disciplines "from the level of the mechanical to that of the lib- eral arts, had to give them a firm theoretical, that is to say, mathe- matical foundation."327 That mathematical foundation was in painting, at least, the mathematics of perspective. Whereas the medieval artist had tended to project a pre-established geometrical norm into his imagery, the Renaissance artist extracted a metrical norm from the natural arrange- ment of objects he found around him. The age of measurement had arrived. The Renaissance introduced the procedure of drawing to scale; in their buildings, their paintings, and in the wonderful new phenomenon, maps.328 "Perspective may be regarded as a practical means for securing a rigorous two-way, or reciprocal, metrical relationship between the shapes of objects as definitely located in space and their pictoral representa- 329 tion." Once again, Alberti went charging into the lead. He invented 252 a scheme for perspectivist drawing in 1435 that, "marked the effectual beginning of the substitution of visual for tactile space awareness."330 Perspective assumed that space was homogeneous and nature was uniform. It was the pictorial manifestation of the logic of the mathematics of motion. Perspective built a system of symbols that had a logical scheme for its interrelations and combinations within itself, and its symboli- zation of external fact in one-to-one correspondence. Perspective erected boundaries around the world for it had a visible end in tempor- ality in the vanishing point. What lay beyond the vanishing point, because it could not be seen, was, in effect, unreal. In a visual world, only what can be seen and accounted for has the status of realityfa‘ln this sense perspective is structurally akin to print. In print, the sequential arrangement of words betokens a linear world of time and space where event follows event in cause and effect relation by virtue of the sequence alone. "The Renaissance destroyed the medieval hierar- chical picture of the world; its elements were transferred to one single plane, and the higher and lower stratum became relative. The accent was placed on 'forward' and 'backward.lu332 With emphasis placed on forward and backward, time became an essential, marketable, commodity. This, as we saw, was one of the effects of mathematics in the fifteenth century. Not only were new pictorial forms emerging in painting, but also painting was concerning itself with new subject matter, the natural world and the individual human being. Renaissance painters delighted in the myriad forms and colors of the natural world. Open vistas with bold colors fascinated their eye, and they strove to capture the match- less beauty of the natural surroundings upon the canvas. Fine lines and shadows appeared in profusion as the Renaissance sought to reproduce the 253 world in its every detail. It was as if every missed line and point of medieval paintings were called into being and given their full expression in the Renaissance. Individuality, the inevitable manifestation of a visual bias, re- appeared,and painters ceased to paint the composite man, and began to display each portrait in all its personality and idiosyncracies. The work of time upon the face, the replication of movement and dress, all found their way into the new portraiture. There was no other way. The Renaissance was awash with visual stimuli, and all those recent visual innovations in the metaphorical systems -- print, mathematics and mone -- came to a head in fifteenth-century Italy. Art was placed on a new visual base which, by l600,was beginning to radically alter the art of other countries. PERSONALITY AND SOCIETY "All forms of discovery, all ferms of original thought, are connected in some way, however distant: and it is natural to see a connection be- tween these particular forms."333 Each of the four metaphorical systems has moved along the same path of advance from a deeply oral-tactile bias toward stronger levels of visuality, though they have not progressed at a uniform rate toward that end. It will be the job of this final section to trace the stages of growth of a visually-biased personality structure in "Europe," between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the seventeenth century. This process will mirror the growth of the visually-biased personality- structure that appeared in Hellenic Greece. The cut-off date set at the beginning of the seventeenth century is not meant to indicate that 254 the visually-biased personality structure of Europe died at that time. On the contrary, it was to continue to flourish for several hundred years, and provide the motivating force behind European expansion and rule of the globe. The beginning of the seventeenth century was chosen, somewhat arbitrarily, as the date when the visual-bias achieved a kind of permanence in the perceptuo-cognitive structure of "Europe." That is to say, the visually-biased mind achieved a kind of consensus among the leaders of thought and opinion in Europe and was to remain the norm for generations. With the fall of Rome, "Europe" was plunged into a world of chaos and swirling currents of violence. Plaque, pestilence, brigands, and invaders all worked to create within the European psyche expectations of the immanent destruction of the world, and ceaselessly worked to construct a mental environment of despair, gloom and insecurity. Family relationships were broken, social intercourse was limited to smaller and smaller regions, birth-control was practiced, and, due to the psycho- logical tension, women seemed to have become less fertile.334 Only within the cloistered monasteries was regularity and order the rule. Life in the monastery was regulated by bells and locks which segmented the day into times for work, times for prayer and times for contempla- tion.335 But monasteries were the exception. Their small islands of rudimentary visuality were not immune to the violent tenor of life that surged around and often into them. Europe was predOminantly oral, not only in her auditory bias in language and art, but also in her appraoch to the dictates of law and the church. The harshness of life was matched only the harshness of human society; a society that had no concept of intent or interiority.336 255 Behavior was all that mattered since there was no apprehension of indi- vidual psyche and motivation. What happened, did so because it was meant to happen. There could be no other explanation. The cosmos was governed by powerful external forces which only the human group could withstand. The rules for behavior were given by the ancient, incorrup- tible authority of the Church Fathers. "In early medieval law legiti- "337 "Doctrine was macy was thought of as coming from outside society. to be accepted literally and uncritically, as if it were something exterior to the mind instead of having a logical structure to be recon- structed by one's own intelligence."338 This is precisely the relation between man and his world exhibited in Greece before the advent of the alphabet, coinage and mathematics. And it was to be these three technologies of the intellect that would catapult Europe out of her oral world into the world of vision. "The novelty of the twelfth century in the history of medieval mentalities lies in the sudden predominance of cognitive structures "339 Those that were different from those of the early Middle Ages. different cognitive structures of the twelfth century were capable of abstract generalizations, formal logical operations, clear-cut distinc- tions between categories of objects and ideas most visibly demonstrated in alphabetization, and concerns for time and for man himself. Man was a natural object "in all essential respects like other natural objects. He was a collection of quasi-independent powers and states, and he might be known by an examination of these powers and states."340 The new spirit of inquiry abroad in the land found its most brilliant 341 expression in scientific inquiry. The entire creation was seen in a new mathematical light. But the new spirit was manifested in another 256 way, competition. Social upheaval was the most apparent phenomenon of the entire century. This social upheaval was not just internal to Europe, but, through the Crusades, reached out to include the Levant. The Crusades probably "served as a needed safety valve for the untamed energies" of Europe, especially those elements within the populace com- peting for position, status and fame. With the construction of new bureaucracies, with population growth exceeding that of available posi- tions of respect, with the church under increasing criticism, with the balance of power beginning to shift to secular authorities, it is no wonder that in the twelfth century people were immensely class conscious 342 As the and that "public passion was the mark of the heroic life." new order grew, the old order continually, and through ever more violent displays, tried to maintain its existence. The theology of the church was in no way unaffected by this great wave of new knowledge, social disorder and competition. The twelfth century was a time of trial, and with the Abbot Joachim Flore, "a great competitive conception of Christian history was born."343 But the major intellectual processes of the twelfth century were not the resolution of certain philosophical,scientific, or purely mathe- matical problems through more factual knowledge. What the Greeks, Romans, and especially the scholars of Islam provided twelfth-century Europe was a new mental structure to abrate against, to tap Europe's own reservoirs of creativity, to integrate and absorb. This new mental structure was visually-biased. When the scholars of Europe learned its dynamics they could begin to construct a new conceptual structure, explore uncharted regions of human intellectual capacity; that is, begin to create "Europe," not just as a political region, but as a distinct intellectual tradition. 257 It was the form of visual thought not necessarily its content that constituted the great innovation in Europe. It was the new way provided to think about the cosmos, not thinking itself, that mattered the most. It is not that the Greeks, Romans and Arabs thought better, as that they thought differently. The structure of Arabic mathematics, the raw material for the mathematics of the "West," provided the means of objecti- fying, and endlessly repeating, certain existing spacial intuitions. Once objectified -- in stone, or instrumentation, or in mechanics -- that intuition was available to anyone who could apply the mathematics. No longer did innovations have to proceed along the slow path of intuited insight based on a paucity of information and examples. Now the mathe- matics existed that could provide maps of innumerable imaginative leaps. Mathematics was the process of mapping in the varied relations between mathematical symbols, the on-going cognitive constructions of the human mind. Mathematics, like language, money, and art, is an technology of the intellect with which not just ideas but thought itself can be materi- alized and generated. Once Europe realized this, they could learn to manipulate the structure of thought to obtain answers to even their most long-standing questions. The twelfth century's explosion of psychic energy was not a "renais- sance" in the dictionary sense of the word, "Renaissance is too weak a word to characterize this shift, which comprised much more than a return to antique canons of style or the recovery of classical texts . . . A better parallel than the Italian Renaissance in the Greece of the fifth century B.C., when questions of ethnics, politics, and science were also 344 discussed in a radically new way." Individuality was re-emerging from the corporate matrix. 258 The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were times of wild fluctu- ations in the European psyche as the old and new world-views clashed repeatedly. Into this psychic maelstrom intruded numerous natural disasters which re-awakened feelings of despair, resignation, insecurity and immanent cataclysm. Many thought God was punishing them for their wicked individualistic ways.345 Others were less concerned with God, at least as a overbearing, transcendent, angry force, and more concerned with understanding how His Creation was ordered. Scientific knowledge reached a new peak with 346 For motion the observation and mechanical explanation of motion. was not just a principle of the stars, motion had to do with time, and time was boundup with human life and purpose. Time was as much an intellectual quality as a physical quality. "It is a commonplace that the years between 1300 and 1650 saw within the intellectual culture of Europe important changes in the apprehension of time."347 That new apprehension of time considered time as a measur- able though purely intellectual object. Time measurements were used to map the coordinates of space. This gave rise to a new conception of space as homogeneous, infinite, linear, two-dimensional}48 A great unresolvable pardox occured. For the awareness that space and time were intellectual objects, and thus were bounded, clashed with their mathematical formulations which proved they were infinite. This was a fictional world of illusion that acquired a frighteningly insistent quality of reality. For with a time and space of infinite duration no matter how wisely one's time was used there were always yawning chasms of unlimited, unexploited periods left untouched.349 Thus, the great dilemma that came to face early modern Europe was not the notion of infinity, for medieval man knew of infinity. Yet, the 259 endlesness of medieval time and space were filled with the plentitude of God. Emptiness was not a part of the medieval world. But the new conception of the world and of man was built upon that very notion of emptiness -- the emptiness of space and of time, and the emptiness within man. The great activity for Western man was not to know his place in an already inhabited cosmos,but to fill that cosmos with him- self through ceaseless,productive exertion. Man was now free to produce and make choices as he willed, but he was not free to not produce and not make choices. Aquisitiveness be- came a passion not just because of the devastation of the plague, but also because of a psychological pressure to fill the self,to acquire power and respect, to assert one's new found individuality. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the acquisitive impulse helped send European ships to Africa and North America looking for gold and silver.350 Competition between nations for the worlds resources became a cornerstone of state policy and economic productivity. Private enterprise began to flourish, especially among merchants and traders. always among the first to eye personal advantages. In religion the doctrines of Luther and others "were an answer to psychic needs."35] Private enterprise in the market-place of commerce was matched by a private interpretise in the market-place of ideas. Renaissance-era literature sought to discover "forms that would make possible and would justify the most extreme freedom and frankness of thought and speech . . . [It was] . . . so to speak, a direct 'carnivalization' of human con- sciousness, philosophy and literature."352 353 But this new outburst of orginiality only deepened the paradox. "Freedom and tyranny, individuality and disorder, were inextricably 260 interwoven" and, the new freedom that man felt brought "an increased feeling of strength and at the same time an increased isolation, doubt, "354 Every new freedom from traditional re- scepticism, and anxiety. straint carried with it a call for new forms of restraint. The specter of standardization reappeared in the same shape it had appeared to the Greeks, rationality. Social relations and even thought had to be homo- genized. And as the new time-sense initiated men into a new relation with their natural and human environment, so new considerations of time homogenized those relations. Time was to be linked to the workshop and factory as never before. Time was to become a commodity purchaseable by the highest bidder. "To be bought and sold time had to be neutralized. Customary ways of spending days had to be deprived of their significance so that one day was much like another, and time could thus be spent in one activity as well as another. Days, hours, and minutes became interchangeable "355 Time was no longer passed but spent; It was like standard parts. currency. Numbers and time became symbols of the mortal. A heightened awareness of mortality began to pervade those under the domination of the new time sense.356 But it was in the industrial complex of Britain that rational management of time and rationally based social institutions first appeared in a modern form. Zeveder Barbu claims, ". . . there are grounds for saying that the mental organization of the individual of the modern Western world was created in England. Since the beginning of the modern era the English- men's personality structure has been in some important respects the prototype of personality structure in modern Western civilization. It 261 is rooted in a secular system of security; a self-centered personality characteristic of individuals with a high-degree of self-awareness, self- integration and self-control; a personality which emerges from and leads "357 In short, the personality struc- to an individualized social order. ture acquiring distinct form in England was like its counterpart in Greece 2000 years before. And this personality was directed through society under the same kind of rational law. The economic upheaval of the sixteenth century had a profound effect on England. "On the one hand it increased the homogeneity of English society by reducing the difference between town and country. On the other hand, it created new social tensions by intensifying the 358 These are the competition between rural and urban manufacturers." classic twin effects of any innovation. The cleaving together and the cleaving apart are not separate but constitute an integrated set of effects. The process of social homogenization is always done at the expense of old divisions of unity and disunity. As we know, in England, the urban manufacturers won out over the rural manufacturers. This was in large part due to the efficient husbandry of time that industrial production demands. But the English worker had to undergo a complete reorientation in his work habits to operate comfortably in the new economic environment. With the psychological mold formed, by 1600, or shortly thereafter, the personality structure for industrial society was cast in England. England became the new torchbearer of visually-biased society. In the hands and minds of English merchants, managers, scholars, scientists and artisans, who were the heirs of the visually-biased innovations of the preceeding centuries, visualist innovations were further developed. 262 They were the ones to most fully grasp the implications for social order remaining to be tapped within visual assumptions. They were the first to champion and implement the unification, on a global level, of disparate peoples under a single, "rational," system of socio-economic relations. This global reach of visuality effectively, though at first only theoretically, homogenized all societies with which it came in contact. All societies had to step up their visual biases to acquire rank in the new world of modernity. And though the full material reali- zation of this standardization of human relations around the globe was not to be seen for centuries, in the sixteenth century John Donne fore- saw the inevitable result. In his poem "An Anatomy of the World," Donne anticipates the future cry an advancing visuality would bring from the throats of all peoples confronted with its power to level their hierar- chical societies and reunite them in a new democratic order. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply and all Relation. ' FOOTNOTES 1H.J. Chaytor, From Script 59 Print, Cambridge University Press, London, 1945, p. 4. 2"Universal" here should be restricted to the learned classes, to those who could write. As Walter Ong states, Latin was "the language used for learned thinking and expression. From the end of classical antiquity the whole existence of this language had depended upon script. It was spoken by millions, but by no one who could not write it." The. Presence gf_the_Word, p. 76. 3Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L.A. Manyon, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962, p. 75. 4 5"Most of the vernaculars were seldom if ever written. When they were, there was no standard way to write them." Ong, Op. Cit., p. 77. Ibid. p. 77. 6"For theological, or what may be called scientific purposes, Latin naturally came first; it was generally known, and it possessed the vocabulary required for dealing with technical subjects, to a degree which no vernacular could claim." Chaytor, Op. Cit., p. 23. - 70ng, p. 76-77. 8Ong states, "In the course of the sound-sight split, the great age of Latin rhetoricians around the turn of the Christian era was succeeded by the age of such great Latin grammerians as Victorinus, Donatus, Priscian, Cassiodorus, from the fourth to the early sixth century of the Christian era." The Presence 2.12.1319. Word, p. 78. 9 10 Ibid. p. 78. Ibid. p. 77. nA switch from common law to Roman law signals a switch in emphasis from concrete facts to abstract principles. Thus, in contrast to common law, "the Roman law tradition in its concern with principles . . . encour- ages an interest in philosophical theory and theoretical speculation." Harold Innis, Changing_Concepts gf_Time, University of Toronto Press, 1952, p. 57. 12Marc Bloch claims the invasions of the Germanic peoples into western Roman territory commences the first feudal age. Feudal Society, 263 264 p. XIX. N.J.G. Pounds says about the ninth-century invasions, "The damage and destruction which they occassioned was at least as great as that caused by the Germanic invaders of the Roman Empire." An Economic History 9f Medieval Europe, Longman Group LTD., London, 1974, p. 84. 13"The Carolingian Renaissance had little impact on these intellectual methods. Although a few authors-—notably Paschase Radbertus and John Scotus Erigena-—suggested new interpretations or ventured to question the views of the Fathers, most scholars devoted their efforts to editing and preserving old texts. In their own works the Carolingians generally were content to collect quotations related to their subjects." Charles M. Radding, "Evolution of Medieval Mentalities: A Cognitive-Structural Approach", American Historical Review, 83,#3, p.589. 14"The oration and the epic were the two great verbal art forms of oral and residually oral society in the West." Ong, p. 57. Marc Bloch points out that while France and Germany developed lyrical epic poetry Italy never did. He asserts this might be because, of all the nations of "Europe“, Italy alone continued to have educated laymen. Hence, they remained tied to the written word more than any other people. Feudal Society, p. 100-101. 15Chaytor, p. 52-53. Chaytor goes on to say, "these conditions have been altered by the printed page." From Script tg_Print, p. 53. 16Ibid. p. 14. Walter Ong states, "Through antiquity and the Middle Ages, and much later, most written matter itself remained associated with the oral to a degree seldon appreciated today." The Presence gf_the_ Word, p. 58. 17 Chaytor, p. 1. 18This, of course, held only for Catholics. As Bloch points out. Catholicism had "incompletely penetrated among the common people." Feudal Society, p. 82. Radding illuminates the kind of morality that prevailed in medieval Europe. Moral behavior was governed by the writings of the Curch Fathers whose doctrine was to be "accepted literally and uncritically as if it were something exterior to the mind." "Evolution of Medieval Mentalities: A Cognitive-Structural Approach", p. 589. Exterior authority is oral. Interior in visual, "rational". 19Josiah c. Russell, Twelfth Century Studies, AMS Press, N.Y., 1978, p. 17. 2°Ibid. p. 16. See also, William Brandt, Ibe_$hape 9f_Medieval History: Studies ig_Modes 9f_Perception, Yale University Press, New Haven,’l966. 21The mid-eleventh century corresponds with the beginnings of Bloch's second "feudal age". Feudal Society, p. 60. 22"In the course of the second feudal age political authority, which 265 up to that time was much subdivided, began everywhere to be concentrated in larger organisms." Bloch, p. 421. N.J.G. Pounds states, “A profound change took place in Europe in the later decades of the tenth and early years of the eleventh centuries." Ag_Economic History 9f Medieval Europe, p. 91. 23 24C. Homer Haskins, The Renaissance gf_the Twelfth Century, Meridan Books, World Publishing Company, N.Y., 1966, p. 198. 25 Bloch, p. 437. Bloch, p. 412. 26Chaytor, p. 42. 27 28Jeffrey Burton Russell, A_Historyigf_Medieval Christianity, Thomas Crowell Pub., N.Y., 1968. Russell, Twelfth Century Studies. 29 Bloch, p. 104. Bloch, p. 104. 30Ibid. p. 104. 3'Ibid. p. 107. 32 33Haskins, p. 275. Bloch claims this revival of vernaculars brought forth the first dawnings, around 1100, of "national consciousness." 34 35Sidney Packard, Twelfth Century Europe: An Interpretive Essay, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst,l973, p. 170. See a150, Christopher Brooke, The Twelfth Century Renaissance, Thames and Hudson, London, 1969. 36 37Roman law was brought into Northern Europe by the Italian scholars, of whom the two most famous were Irenerius, the chief spokesman for Roman law, and Gratian, who developed church canon law on Roman law principles. Russell, Twelfth Century Studies, p. 103. As Haskins points out, church canon law developed parallel to the new secular law, even to the extent of feeding on the secular law for its own new formulations. Canon law came to be, paradoxically, the major vehicle for Roman law "kind of thought". Thus, by using the principles of Roman law to develop and legitimate new powers for itself in response to growing secular powers, the church fostered the very kind of thinking it sought to extirpate. This is inevitably the result when innovations are used to increase the efficiency and scope of old activities. 38 Ibid. p. 106. Haskins, p. 345. Haskins, p. 194. Packard, p. 170. 266 39Bloch, p.422. 4oPackard, p. 221. Bloch says about Britain, "It is significant that almost from the first this monarchy, born of a successful war, seems to have had at its disposal at an early date an educated personnel and bureaucratic machinery. . . . England was a unified state much earlier than any continental kingdom." Feudal Society, p. 429-430. 41 Haskins, p. 14. 42Haskins, p. 288. A good number of European scholars worked with the Jewish scholars in Spain on translations. Jews always emphasised scholarship and the written text. 43Haskins, p. 300. 44 45 Ibid. p. 289. Ibid. p. 286. 46Frederick, of course. was a Norman ruler. Of important note, however, was Frederick's relation with Constantinople, which was a center of Greek learning and tradition. Greek manuscripts on science and philosophy were not to be found in Spain in any appreciable numbers. Only Arabic translations of Greek manuscripts existed. But in the kingdom of Frederick, direct translations from Greek to Latin could be done. Aristotle had pride of place among scholars based in Constantinople. See, Haskins, p. 14 and 278. 47 p. 43. 48Peter is another of those paradoxical figures who occupies a prominent position in the history of a period. His hatred of Islam lead him to make the first translation of the Koran into Latin to combat its influence. But, as with Roman law and the church, by making the Koran available Peter helped, not hindered, the influence of Islam. 49 The monastery at Clune had an astronomical 570 volumes. Haskins, Haskins, p. 72-73. 50 51 52 Bloch, p. 422. Ong, The Presence 9flthe_Word, p. 221. I will dwell more on Plato's influence in the section on Mathematics. 53Packard, p. 153. 54 55Packard, p. 154-155. Brooke's The Twelfth Century Renaissance is a good source for study of all these changes. Ong, p. 59. 267 56Radding, p. 597. I will develop this theme in more detail in the section on "Personality and Society". 57"The hired scriptor or scrivener began to supplement or to replace the monastic scribe at an early date; St. Albans made regulations for the employment of such professionals before the middle of the thirteenth century; in the late fourteenth century the York scriveners formed a guild of their own." Chaytor, From Script tp_Print, p. 17. 58 59Elizabeth Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Protestant Revolt: A New Approach to the Disruption of Western Christendom", p. 235, from Transition and Revolution, ed. Robert Kingdon, Burgess Publishing, Minneapolis, 1974} Haskins, p. 89. 6OPaolo Rossi, Philospphy, Technology, and the Arts ip_the Early Modern Era, trans. Salvator Attanasio, Harper and Row, N.Y., 1970, p. 26. 610119, p. 237. "The spread of literacy and the decline of the epic occured together in Western Europe, while illiteracy and the epic survived together in Sicily, in Bosnia, in Russia. The book was a treacherous ally because the fixing of texts in print affected the nature of the performance, encouraging the repetition, as opposed to the re-creation, of a song or story." Peter Burke, Popular Culture 3p Early Modern Europe, Harper and Row, N.Y., 1978, p. 255T7 62Ong, p. 238. Ong continues, "This is not the only point in comm- unications history where a new development at first only exaggerated a condition which it will later eliminate." p. 239. 63Ibid. p. 240. 64Marshall McLuhan, "Effects of the Improvements of Communications Media", The Journal pf Economic History, December 1960, p. 568-569. "One begins to wonder whether print did not preserve and even diffuse tra- ditional popular culture rather than destroy it." Burke, Op. Cit. p. 257. 65Elizabeth Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance", Past and Present, November 1969, p. 26. 66Eisenstein asserts, "A hard working copyist turned out two books in little less than a year. An average edition of an early printed book ranged from two hundred to one thousand copies." "The Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought", The Journal pf_Modern History, 40, # , p. 3. 67E.J. Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization pf_the World Picture, trans. C. Dikshoorn, Oxford Clarendon Press, London, 1961, p. 244-245. 68Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renais- sance", p. 246. Deno John Geanakoplos provides an excellent example of the preservation of the Greek vernacular. "Beginning in the late 268 fourteenth century and extending well into the sixteenth, a more or less steadily increasing flow of refugees . . . poured into the West. . . . Through their work of teaching, manuscript copying, and preparing of texts for the press contributed materially to the advancement of Greek studies in Western Europe." Greek Scholars jp_Venice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1962, p. l. 69Chaytor, p. 29. 70Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, Signet Books, New American Library, N.Y., 1962, p. 260. Eisenstein states, "It is no accident that nationalism and mass literacy have developed together." "The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance", p. 246. 7]"Language had little or no political significance in the middle ages. No ruler dreamt of attempting to suppress one language in order to impose another." Chaytor, p. 22. 72 p. 3. 73Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renais- sance", p. 52. 74 Eisenstein, "The Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought", Ibid. p. 54. 75Fernand Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life: 1400-1800, trans. Miriam Kochan, Weidenfield and Nicolson, London, 1973, p. 299. 76 77Ibid. p. 151. McLuhan is quoting from E.P. Goldschmidt's, Medieval Texts and Their First Appearance jg Print. In the same vein, Homer Haskins says, ". . . the Middle Ages did not care much for alphabetical order, at least beyond the first letter." The Twelfth Centurngenaissance p. 78. 78Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Protestant Revolt", p. 251. 79Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renais- sance", p. 23. McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, P. 161. 80Ibid. p. 62. Carlo Cipolla remarks. ". . . on the whole clock- makers were distinguished among the other craftmen for a relatively high degree of literacy." Clocks and Culture: 1300-1700, W.W. Norton Co., N.Y., 1978, p. 62. 81Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Protestant Revolt", p. 256. 82"Protestants and printers had more in common than Catholics and printers did." Ibid. p. 250. Cipolla remarks, "The Reformation apparently made a relatively large number of converts among the clockmakers." Clocks and Culture, p. 63. “"“' 269 83Eisenstein,"The Advent of Printing and the Protestant Reformation," p. 241. 84Ibid. p. 243. 85Ibid. p. 253. 86Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. Helen Iswolsky, MIT Press, 1965, p. 320. 87Eisenstein, "The Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought, p. 14. 88John u. Nef, 'The Cultural Foundations pf_1ndustrial Civilization, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1958, p. 124. 89Eisenstein, "The Advent of Printing and the Protestant Reformation," p. 247. 90Chaytor, From Script EQLEEEQE, p, 34. MATHEMATICS p 9:'A1fred North Whitehad, ygges,gjylggggpg, Free Press, N.Y., 1968, 92 See Etienne Gilson, The History prChristian Philosophy’jp_the. Middle Ages, Random House, N.Y. 1955. 93 Gilson, p. 74. 94E. J. DijksterhUis, The Mechanization pf_the World Picture, p.84. 95Edmund Whittaker, Space and Spirit, Henry Regnery Comp., Hinsdale, Ill., 1948, p. 19. See also Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thopght §pg_the Origins pf_Algrebra, trans. Eva Brann, MIT Press, Cambridge, 9 8. 96Ogura Kinnosuke, "Arithmetic in a Class Society," from Science and Societ ip_Modern Japan, ed. S. Nakayama, D. Swain, E. Yagi, MIT PFEss, 1974, pp. 19-23. 97Dijksterhuis, p. 17. 270 98Kinnosuke, Op. Cit. p. 20. 99David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1976, p. 86. 100A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain pf Being, Harper and Row, N.Y., 1960, p. 102. Lovejoy asserts later that opernicanism was opposed partly on the ground that it assigned too dignified and lofty a position to man's dwelling place." p. 100. This shows how long it took for the medieval cosmology to give way. It was more than a mere cosmology in a purely intellectual and philosophical sense. It was a way of life. 101Nichoias Steneck, Science and Creation jp_the Middle Ages, Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1976, p. 105. 102Ibid. p. 105. 103"Natural theology was the motivational basis of late medieval and modern science." Lynn White, Machina 25.992; MIT Press, 1968, p. 101. 104Steneck, p. 52. 105See Frank Manuel's The Shapes gf_Philosophjcal History, Stanford Univ. Press, 1965, for a detailed discussion of this switch. 106"What then is time? I know what it is if no one asks me what it is; but if I want to explain it to someone who has asked me, I find that I do not know." The Confessions 9: St. Augustine, trans. Rex Warner, Mentor Books, New American Library, N.Y., 1963, p. 267. A good deal of Book XI of the Confessions is taken up with Augustine's meditations on time. 107 Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, p. 73. 108Ibid. pp. 74-5. 109From Cassiodorus comes the split of the medieval curriculum into the trivium and the quadrivium. This split retains the Greek split according to the same division. noIncluded among the Indian scholars translated into Arabic was the great seventh-century mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta, who knew the arithmetical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squares and square roots, cubes and cube roots, the reduction of fractions and others. See, Suzan Rose Benedict, A_Comparative Study ‘9: the Early Treatises Introducing into Europe the Hindu Art pf Reckoning, Rumford Press, N.H., 1914, pp. 24-5. 271 1HLynn White, Machina ex_9ep, p. 98. There was a kind of Byzantine connection though, which enabled some western monks to learn of Greek thought. These monks had usually fled from Western lands for religious reasons. See E. J. Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization pf the World Picture, p. 113. IIZGerbert traveled to Spain to learn from Arab scholars. With his new knowledge he improved the abacus, which was universally employed in Europe. This advance, claims Dijksterhuis, was the "first symptom of the introduction of Indo-Arabian numerals." The Mechanization pf the_ World Picture, p. 104. 113Homer Haskins, The Twelfth-Century Renaissance, p. 282 "The dis- tinctive Western tradition of science, in fact, began in the late eleventh century with a massive movement of translation of Arabic and Greek scien- tific works into Latin." White, Machina ex_§ep, p. 82. H4Haskins, p. 289. "Saoth Haskins (p. 232) and William McNeill, in his book Plagues and Peoples (p. 118), claim the Arab physicians were the first to observe disease with sufficient accuracy to permit identification of different diseases. 116"The historical importance of the school of Chartres is determined very largely by its great accessibility to the new sources of knowledge which were opened up through the gradually narrowing contact with Arab and Byzantine culture." Dijksterhuis, p. 108. H7Gillian R. Evans, "From Abacus to Algorism: Theory and Practice in Medieval Arithmetic," British Journal for the History Lf Science, vol. 10, #35, 1977, p. 115. Edmund Whittaker asserts that —the transla- tion of Euclids' Elements about 1120, and Al- Khowarizmi' 5 Algebra in 1145, "were the real beginnings of modern exact science. " Space and Spirit p. 22. 118 Evans, p. 117. IlgGerbert of Aurillac, later Pope Sylvester II, improved the European abacus after he returned from Spain. 120Evans, p. 116. 121The early Indian and Arabic philosophers and mathematicians thought that the nine numbers and zero were created by God Himself. Ekmedict, A Comparative Study Lf the Early Treatises Introducing into Europe the Hindu Art Lf Reckoning, p. 4. Recall this was exactly the same attitude taken in _antiquity toward the invention of writing. 272 'ZZJ. M. Pullan, Ins History pf_the Abacus, Frederick A. Praeger Pub., N.Y., 1969, p. 35. 123David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery, p. 104. 124Evans, p. 129, footnote #15. Evans is quoting Turchillus. 125Bioor, Op. Cit. p. 104. Bloor, however, illuminates the very real fact that these intellectual upheavals were readily localiZed in the "learned class." The merchant classes did not much care for ontology and welcomed the new mathematics fairly easily. As fbr those who fought the new number system Bloor states, "The idea that number was a number of units, and that unit itself had a special nature, lasted until the sixteenth century." (p. 103). 126Evans, p. 121. Recall that Innis postulated that the introduc- tion of statutory Roman law signaled a switch from concrete common law to a concern for abstract principles of justice. Roman law encouraged an interest in theory and theoretical speculation. Europe was being bombarded from all directions with abstract visuality. 127Speng1er, The Decline pf the West, p. 66. ‘28Evans. pp. 114-115. 129Benedict, p. 54. 130Evans, p. 121. Recall that writing underwent a similar "boustro- phedan" period in antiquity. Does this signal a transition from a domi- nance of the analogical right hemisphere to a dominance of the logical left hemisphere in twelfth-century Europe? 131Arabic numerals themselves did not have a stable form until the invention of printing. Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Lapguage pf_$cience, p. 34. 132 Evans, p. 117. 133Kinnosuke, "Arithmetic in a Class Society," p. 21. 134Both Evans and Benedict assert as much. 135Josiah Russell believes Arabic science was introduced into England in the tenth century. Twelfth-Century Studies, p. 150. 136Grossetest was first. Edmund Whittaker believes Grosseteste (1175-1253) reintroduced number relations as the foundation of physical 273 structures. He also devoted considerable attention to the laws of per- spective, which is, of course, a visual accomplishment. Space app. Spirit, PP. 48-9. 137"Eiements of arithmetical calculation derived their definitions from the Greek and their methods from the Hindus." Benedict, p. 126. 138The Oxford curriculum of the fourteenth-century mathematician Henry of Langenstein included not only the important works of Aristotle, but also "at least a hundred lectures dealing with mathematics . . . Thus, it would seem that the faculty itself realized that at licensing the greatest emphasis should be placed on subjects relating to natural and moral philosophy as set out in the works of Aristotle rather than the trivium." Nicholas Steneck, Science and Creation jp_theMiddle Ages, p. 12 139 Dijksterhuis, p. 126. 140See William Brandt, The Shape_ of Medieval History: Studies jp_ Modes Lf Perception, Yale Univ. Press, —1966, p. 12. 14'Ibid. p. 13. 142Arnold Pacey, Ipe_Maze.prIngenuity, Holmes and Meier Pub., N.Y., 1975, p. 27. 143"Gothic cathedrals and Doric temples are mathematics in stone." Spengler, The Decline pf §pe_West, p. 58. Also Pacey, pp. 48-49. 144A curious division took place in Europe. In Italy, Arabic numerals were first applied to commerce, then, during the period of the Renaissance, they were applied to art and technical matters. North of, the Alps the reverse was true. In both cases, that area of society which was the direct recipient of Arabic numerals became the leading sector of that society. At almost precisely the time that numbers were first applied to commerce in Northern Europe, Italian commerce was losing influence but Italian art was revolutionizing art and technics. 145Spengler claims that infintesimal calculus is actualized "in the earliest forms of Gothic architecture. " Decline Lf the West, p. 59. The architectural emobdiment of a form of reasoningo Biten preceeds the mathematical form of that reasoning. For a similar view see Christopher Alexander, Notes pp_the Synthesis pf_Form, Harvard Univ. Press, 1964, pp. 1-11. 146"What was of greatestimportance for the development of the practi- cal arts in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was the interest then shown in mathematics. " Pacey, p.76. 274 147Lynn White, Medieval Technology and Social Change, Oxford Univ. Press, 1962, p. 125. 148"Just as with all other sciences, the West owes its knowledge of astronomy to the work of Arab scholars in preserving the Greek cultural heritage, and to the inestimable industry of the twelfth and thirteenth- century translators." Dijksterhuis, p. 209. 149Steneck believes that corpuscular theories of light were advanced in antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages, but, because of the concern for form over matter, these theories were not held in esteem. A cor- puscular theory of light could claim that matter was not completely subordinate to Aristotelian form since the corpuscles were in constant interchange with an environment. See Steneck, p. 47. 150Steneck, p. 59. 151William Wallace, "Mechanics from Bradwardine to Galileo," Journal .gf_the History 9f_Ideas,vol. 32, #1, p. 16. 152Herein lies a great irony. The scholars in Paris were Neo- platonists: Augustinians actually. The middle ages seemed to continu- ally see-saw back and forth over whether Plato or Aristotle was the more important thinker. The twelfth-century belonged to Plato, the thirteenth to Aristotle. The fourteenth ended with Plato once more on top. 153The growing visual bias of Europe's thinkers is even more apparent in the original work of Nicole Oresme. Oresme was the first to introduce and apply graphical representations to motion. Oresme's first graph was of speculations on Aristotle's theories on the intensification and re- mission of qualities. This is.of course,a highly intricate problem of logic and Oresme attempted to graph each step in strict succession. Graphing is two-dimensional and visual. See Dijksterhuis, p. l85.and Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command, W.W. Norton and Comp., N.Y., 1948. PP. 15-16. 154"Towards the beginning of the fourteenth century counter-poise clocks brought with them at last, not only the mechanization of the instrument, but, so to speak, of time itself." Marc Bloch,Feudal Society, p. 74. 155Steneck asserts that for many fourteenth-century philosophers "the world is a machine mundi, a giant clock." Henry of Langenstein . . . [flie object of Stenecks study]. . . alludes to the clock metaphor on several occasions." Science and Creation jg_the Middle Ages, p. 151. 156 White, Medieval Technology and Social Change, p. 125. 275 157Car1o Cipolla, Clocks and Culture, w.w. Norton, N.Y., 1978, p. 34. 158Cipolla remarks that prior to the eighteenth century "the sudden disappearance of a fifth of the population or a third or even half, was, every once in awhile a recurrent catastrophe of local experience." Ihg_ Economic History of World Population, Penguin Books, England, p. 84. 159Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Agg_of Humanism, Random House, N. Y. 1962, pp. 27- 28. See also Spengler, Decline of the West p. 70. Astronomy provides an excellent example of the slowness of the movement of these new ideas related to number. The Copernican revo- lution really consisted of a reversal of positions between the earth and the sun. Copernicus seems to have been one of those scholars of the transition period. For Copernicus, "although he took the all- important step of placing the sun in the center of the universe, still retained the intricate machinery of epicycles." Edmund Whittaker, Space and Spirit, p. 65. 160Cipolla, Clocks and Culture, p. 34. 161McLuhan, The Gutenberngalaxy, p. 194. 1620119, The Presence gfhth§_wordo PP- 219'220- 163That beauty and nature were linked to numbers was, of course, a Greek Ideal and much of the Renaissance fed on this notion. But that beauty and the secrets of nature were subject to, or related to, quanti- fication was new. For quantity now was built upon a different logical foundation that Plato or Pythagoras dreamed of. 164Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery, p. 107. 165 p. 10. John U. Nef, The Cultural Foundations 9f Industrial Civilization, 166McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, p. 217. 167Ernst Cassiere, The Problem 9199132393. 11. 72. 168The telescope and microscope both invented in Europe about 1580. John Nef, The Cultural Foundations of_Industrial Civilization, p. 27. 16QSpengler, The Decline gj_§hg_West, p. 74. 170Ibid. p. 74. 276 1”Ibid. p. 75. 172Ivins, Art and Geometry, p. IX. 173Dijksterhuis, p. 377. Descartes says space was "a continuous body, or a space indefinitely extended in length, breadth, heighth or depth, which was divisible into various parts, and which might have various figures and sizes, and might be moved or transposed in all sorts of ways. . ." Rene Descartes, Discourse gfl_Methog_and Other Works, trans. E. S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross, Washington Square Press, N.Y., 1965, p. 100. 174Whittaker, Space and Spirit, p. 98. 175Ivins, Art and Geometry, p. 109. 176Dijksterhuis, p. 379. 177Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origins gf_Algebra, trans. Eva Brann, MIT Press, 1968. 1781bid. p. 146. I will depend upon Klein's discussion throughout. 1”Ibid. p. 127. 180See Bloor, Knowledge and Social ImagehY- 18lKlein, Op. Cit. p. 139. 182Ibid. p. 173. 183Ibid. p. 175. The introduction of such algebraic innovations was the foundation for projective geometry. 184Ibid. p. 121. 185Ibid. p. 125. MONEY 186Braudel, Qgpitalism and Material Life, p. 326. 187Marshall McLuhan, Understandigg Media, p. 127. 277 188The epilogue of this work is an examination of the effects of this process in historiography. Language is no longer just a medium through which thought is expressed, but is also an object to be accounted for in any historiographical exercise. 189"As money separates itself from the commodity form and becomes a specialist agent of exchange (or translator of values), it moves with greater speed and in ever greater volume." McLuhan, Understandigg Media, p. 131. Coinage, next to credit, is the most abstract, specialist form of money for its use-value is entirely in its translation power, its exchange-value. ‘90Pierre Vilar, A_History Qf_Gold andMoney: 1450-1920, p. 30. 191 1gzwiniam McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, Anchor Press, Doubleday, N.Y., p. 116. N.J.G. Pounds, Ag Economic History gf_Medieval Europe, p. 43. 193Pounds, p. 67. 194J. N. Biraben and Jacques LeGoff, "The Plague in the Early Middle Ages", from The.B Biology_ of Man in History: Essays from Annales, trans. E. Forster and P. Ranum, ed. R. Forster and O. Ranum, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1975, pp. 48- 80. 195Biraben and LeGoff chart 15 waves of plague between 540 A.D. and 770 A.D. Ibid. pp. 58-59. 196 Bloch, p. 5. 197 198This is a significant fact for it indicates that water levels had fallen. This was indeed the case, as some commentators on climate in history have shown. "The climate of these four centuries . . .[750 - 1150 A.D.]. . . from the Carolingians to the great land clearances, seems to have been quite mild. . . . It is reasonable to think of the Vikings as unconsciously taking advantage of this to colonize Iceland and Green- land. " Emmanuel Leroy- Ladurie, Times Lf Feast, Times Lf Famine: A History_ of Climate Since the Year 1000, trans. Barbara— Bray, DoubTeday and Co., N. Y. 1971, p. 254. Ellsworth Huntington and Stephen Visher claim this era was also dry and that the seventh century, "was apparently the driest time during the historic period. " Climatic Changes: Their Origin and Causes, Yale University Press, 1922, p. 72. C. E. P. Brooks says the period 400- 1200 A. D. was dry, and that between 700- 1000 A. D. traffic again developed on a large scale over the Alpine passes. Climate Through the Ages, Dover Pub, MY 1970, pp. 300- 301. 199 Pounds, p. 84. Bloch, p. 19. 200Pounds, p. 86. 278 201 202Lynn White's Medieval Technology and Social Change discusses all three in greater detail. Bloch, p. l2. 203The phrase "psychological preparation" is White's. 204Pounds, p. 97. 205Carlo Cipolla, "Currency Depreciation in Medieval Europe", Economic History Review, XV, #3, pp. 4l3-422. 206Vilar, p. 32. 207mm. p. 33. 208 Bloch, pp. 65-68. 209 210Europe is divided into a number of climatic regions, each of which has its own unfavorable conditions. In the Mediterranean region, the ‘ biggest factor adversely affecting agriculture is drought. Drought hinders autumnal ploughing and kills spring crops. Ample wetness is necessary for Mediterranean agriculture. In the Nordic countries, cold is the bitter enemy of crops. A hot growing season, particularly in summer, is extremely beneficial. Cool summers are potential killers. In England, France, and Germany wetness and/or high temperatures are the biggest factors farmers must take into account. Crops in these countries need warmth and light, especially in the spring. Dry summers inhibit stock raising but are favorable toward grains. If the temperature is to high, however, and for too long, crop yields can be comprOmised. Netness is the biggest factor working against grains in this region. Leroy-Ladurie, PP. 285-303. 2HMoist conditions, meaning good crops to be used in trade and to improve nutrition, and to increase water levels for better sailing, prevailed in the Mediterranean about lOOO A.D. Huntington and Visher, p. 72. It is no wonder Italy experienced a great economic boom from about lOOO until the thirteenth century. Her population increased from 5 to 7 or 8 million. The diviSion of labor grew and Italy moved from an agricultural to a money economy. These were her good times. Carlo Cipolla, "Currency Depreciation in Medieval Europe", pp. 4l7-420. What happened in the thirteenth century? A number of things. One was the return of dry conditions. Huntington and Visher, p. 72. 212Gustaf Utterstrom, "Climatic Fluctuations and Population Problems in Early Modern History", Scandinavian Economic History Review, l955, vol. 3, #l, p. l7. 213The Norsemen, though not great traders, also benefited. Such warm conditions prevailed that the "Arctic Ocean again became free of Vilar, pp. lB-l9. 279 ice during historic times, from about the fifth to tenth or eleventh “ centuries of the Christian era." C.E.P. Brooks, p. l43. Also Utterstrom, p. 6., Leroy-Ladurie, pp. 257-26l. 214Bloch, p. 4l. 215Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life: l400-l800, p. 329. 216Maxime Rodinson, Islam and Capitalism, trans. Brian Pearce, Allen Lane, Penguin Books, N.Y., l974, p. l6. 217 218Henri Pirenne, Muhammad and Charlemagne, trans. Bernard Miall, Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, l968. pp. 239-241. Ibid. p. 29. 219Rodinson, p. 55. 220Ibid. p. 56. Rodinson, following Marx, believes that to locate the existence of a "capitalist sector" in either the European Middle Ages or the Muslim world, "we must eliminate, as regards credit, all non-monetary forms of lending, all those that do not result in concen- tration of large amounts of money, and look at the formation of moneyed wealth independent of landed property." (p. 9) Only the Muslim economy fulfilled these criteria. As Rodinson claims, "The merchants of the Muslim Empire conformed perfectly to Weber's criteria for capitalist activity." p. 30. 221Ibid. p. 52. 222Braudel, p. 359. 223The Arabic alphabet only appeared in the fourth or fiftth century A.D. David Diringer, The Alphabet, p. 271. 224Joseph Spengler, "The Economic ThOUght of Islam: Ibn Khaldin", Comparative Studies jfl_Society_and History, VI, #3, pp. 268-306. 225 226 Joseph Spengler, p. 275. Braudel, p. 329. 227Spengler, p. 296. 228Packard, Twelfth-Century Europe: An Interpretive Essay, p. 7l 229". . . the transformation of urban life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was predicated upon the overall increase in popula- tion." Pounds, p. l28. 230 Bloch, pp. 39-4l. 231Maurice Dobb states the population of England grew from two 280 million to three and a half million between the Norman conquest and the beginning of the fourteenth century. Studies jg_thg Development of; Capitalism, International Publishers, N.Y., 1947, p. 47. 232P.D.A. Harvey, "The English Inflation of 1180-1220", Past and Egggggt, November 1973, #61, pp. 3-30. ““ 233Herman Van Der Nee, "Structural Changes and Specialization in the Industry of the Southern Netherlands: ll00-1600", Economic History Review, XXVIII, #2, 1975, p. 203. 234Ibid. p. 204. Dobb asserts the same thing in Studies in the_ Development of Capitalism, p. 151. See also, Jacques Heers, 1TThe Feudal Economy and Capitalism: Words, Ideas and Reality", Journal of the Economic History of_Europe, vol. 3, #3, 1974, pp. 609-653. Heers believes the ideas and practices of modern capitalism were established very early in the Middle Ages. There was no abrupt transition from a feudal to a capitalist economy. 235Harry Miskimin, The Economy 9f the Later Renaissance Europe: 1460- 1600, Cambridge University Press, London, I977, p. 53. Braudel claims that harvest yields of at least 3 or 4 to l are necessary to generate enough surplus to feed the towns. Such yields did not appear until the latter part of the twelfth century. Cgpitalism and Material Life: 1400- 1800. PP. 80-82. 236Leroy-Ladurie maintains that a small glacial advance began around 1150. Glacial advances do not take place only with cold weather. Cold, rainy, weather is needed to feed the glacier. Around 1200, he says, there was a period of heavy rainfall. Times 9f Feast, Times gf_Famine, pp. 255-256. C.E.P. Brooks says that between 1100 and 1150, there were three marine floods in Britain. Climate Through_the Ages, p. 303. 237 Dobb, p. 151. 238M.M. Postan, Essays gg_Medieval Agriculture and General Problems 9f the Medieval Economy, ambridge University Press, London, 1973, p. 5. 239In thirteenth-century Britain a technical innovation occured in her woolens industry when the water-mill was used to provide the motive power to operate the large hammers needed to pound the fabric. Previously this was done by hand or by fOOt. But this innovation required the producers to leave the towns and locate near a running stream. Rural labor proved cheaper than urbal labor, and with the enormous expansion in production, the woolens industry in England rose to international prominance. It was not long before the Netherlands was forced out. E.M. Carus-wilson, "An Industrial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century", Essays gg_Economic History, ed. E.M. Carus-Hilson, Edward Arnold Press, London, 1954. PP. 41-60. 24Ooobb, p. 154. 241John U. Nef, The Conquest of the Material World, University of Chicigo Press, Chicago, 1964, pp. 9-10. 281 242 2431bid. p. 23. Nef makes an important point about the spread of Roman law. "In England and Scotland no such bulwarks against the inde- pendent power of private capital in mining were built up during the later Middle Ages. No national mining administration, like that intro- duced in France by the Valois kings, had been established." Ibid. p. 57. The English kings had forbidden the teaching of Roman law, and, in 1219, forbade the study of Roman law by priests. Homer Haskins, The Renaissance 9f the Twelfth Century, p. 217. 244Packard, p. 41. M.M. Postan remarks, "The growth of a money economy, if it is to mean anything at all, signifies an increase in payments, not an increase in bullion or paper money." Essa 5 9g_ Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of_the Medieval Economy, p.33. What a society considers its wealth is what it uses‘for one-way exchanges such as debts. The practice of using coin-currency to pay dents was not widespread at this time, but it does show a definite change in attitude toward money. 245 Ibid. p. 16. Postan, p. 9. 246". . . the thirteenth century was a period of glacial advance, in contrast to the ninth-eleventh centuries, when there was a marked retreat." Leroy-Ladurie, p. 250. Utterstrom, p. 8. C.E.P. Brooks states, "The thirteenth century was very stormy in the North Sea." He documents 18 marine floods in Britain between 1151 and 1300, with 11 of those occuring from 1251-l300. Climate Through the Ages, p. 303. 247Eastern Europe during the thirteenth century experienced a measure of economic advance. This was aborted to some extent by the Mongol invasions. Human settlement moved from river-valleys to higher land due to population pressure and to a rising water-table brought on by heavy rains. For climatic influences see, Teresa Dunin-Wasowicz, "Climate as a Factor Affecting the Human Environment in the Middle Ages", The Journal of the Economic History of_Europe, vol.4 #3, 1975, pp. 691-706. 248Although money-changing had been in practice since the decline of the Carolingian Empire, it is only in the cities of Italy that it achieves speed and frequency enough to demand new methods of recording transactions, extending credit, and measuring profit. 249$panish kings began circulating Muslim coins about 1000 A.D. Soon after they began minting their own coins, though not in any great numbers. By 1175, however, the Christian king, Alphonse, began to mint coins opgnly under his own name. See Vilar, A_History 9: Gold and Money: 1450- 9 O, p. 34. 250 251 Cipolla, "Currency Depreciation in Medieval Europe", pp. 413-422. Packard, p. 75. zszIbid. p. 201. As Maxime Rodinson states, "It therefore seems quite 282 in order that, in medieval Christian society as in Muslim society, it was at the very moment when capitalist practices implying the need for interest were developing with greatest vigor that the theologians and religious lawyers took the greatest trouble to theorize about the prohibition of interest, justifying it, explaining it and allowing for cases and exemptions." Islam and Capitalism, p. 48 253Sheila Delany, "Substructure and Superstructure: The Politics of Allegory in the Fourteenth Century", Science and Society, vol. 38, #3, p. 275. 254 255"Corn and rye from the North probably reached the Mediterranean as early as the fourteenth century. Even earlier than this Italy was receiving Byzantine and Turkish corn. . . . The attraction in each case was ready cash. The rich always paid cash down in the corn trade. . . 1 those who made the biggest profits were the middlemen, like the merchants who speculated on corn. Venice in 1277 was already paying for corn from Apulia in gold bullion. Braudel. pp. 83-84. 256Utterstrom, pp. 20-21. Leroy-Ladurie believes, however, that 1300-1350 is too broad a period of time for accurate measure. He claims the decades from 1300-1350 were not particularly wet. It was after 1350 that conditions became wetter. However, Leroy-Ladurie believes with others that the years 1310-1320 were extremely wet. Times gi_Feast,_Times 9f. Famine, p. 16. 257Europe, here, means east of the Pyrannees and north of the Alps. There is no evidence of inclement weather in Southern Europe. See, Ian Kershaw, "The Great Famine and Agrarian Crisis in England 1315-1322", Past and Present, #59, May 1973, pp. 3-50; and Henry 5. Lucas, "The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317", Essays ig_Economic History, ed. E.M. Carus-Wilson, Edward Arnold Press, London, 1962, pp. 49-72. 258 Miskimin, p. 21. Leroy-Ladurie, p. 46. 259Lucas, p. 51. 260Mavis Mate, "High Prices in Early Fourteenth-Century England: Causes and Consequences", Economic History Review, XXVIII, #1, pp. 1-16. 261Kershaw, Op. Cit. See also, A.R. Bridbury, "Before the Black Death", Economic Historngeview, XXX, #3. PP. 393-410. 262Lucas, "The Great Famine and Agrarian Crisis in England 1315, 1316, and 1317". 263 Bridbury, "Before the Black Death", p. 400. 264Miskimin, p. 21. 265William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, pp. l60-164. 283 266It must be noted that the killer plague was not the bubonic but the pneumonic plague. Fleas carryiBg the bubonic plague require a moderately moist climate between 68 and 78 F. Bubonic plague outbreaks tend to occur in spring and summer. The pneumonic plague, on the other hand, is not spread by fleas, but through its victims coughing droplets into the air which are inhaled by others. This plague is located in urban areas for the most part, and breaks out in winter. The pneumonic plague needs the bubonic bacilli to become activated however. J.M.W. Bean, "Plague, Population and Economic Decline in England in the Later Middle Ages", Economic History Review, XV, #3: PP. 423-437. 267Estimates vary from about 20% to 35%. I chose a middle figure. Leroy-Ladurie claims 25% of England‘s population died. Times ngeastz Times gf_Famine, p. 16. 268 269 Leroy-Ladurie's figures for England are 22.7%, 13.1%, and 12.7%. Braudel, p. 3. 270Pounds, p. 221. Dobb, p. 60. 2“Viiar, p. 25. 272"The fourteenth century was the century when wages rose without seriously diminishing the profits . . . because prices always managed to rise in proportion to wages." A.R. Bridbury, "The Black Death", Economic History Review, XXVI, #l, p. 585. 273"The Peasants Revolt in England was only one example, albeit the most familiar, of a movement which was widespread in western Europe." Pounds, p. 443. 274"In a number of German towns we also hear of insurrectionary movements among the crafts in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries following the rise of an employing capitalist element." Dobb, p. 158. 275Nef, The Conguest of_the Material World, pp. 31-33. Postan, p. 8. 276Dobb, p. 40. Dobb claims later that the growth of trade and the opening of new possibilities for the production of surplus-— that is, exchange-value trade-— "reinforced the tendency to intensify feudal pressure on the peasantry." p. 45. This was especially true of Eastern Europe which had a small but significant economic advance in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, mainly in agriculture and timber, though there was some trade in cloth. The Polish nobility intervened, however, and aligned itself with the state to keep the economy firmly agarian just when it appeared to be heading for commercial prosperity. See, M. Malowist, "The Problem of the Inequality of Economic Development in Europe in the Later Middle Ages", Economic History Review, XIX, #1, pp. 15-28; and M. Malowist, "Movements of Expansion in Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries", Economy and Societng_Early Modern Europe: Essays from the 284 Annales, ed. P. Burke, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1972, pp. 104-112. 277 278 279 280 Pounds, p. 456. Miskimin, p. 21. Dobb, p. 102. Miskimin, pp. 50-51. 281This is not to say that non-Italian Europe wasn't growing and changing. Obviously they were. But it is useless to separate the economy of Europe into exclusive, little compartments, as if they had no interaction. Europe was moving as a unit. But that movement was not uniform throughout the region. Italy was setting the pace. Everybody was trying to keep up. 282E.J. Dijksterhuis states, "If anyone cares to correlate monetary economy with the rise of Italian or double-entry bookkeeping or with the evolution of commercial arithmetic, this is quite plausible." 'Ihg_ Mechanization of the World Picture, p. 242. 283 Ibid. p. 3. 284Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command, W.W. Norton and Co., N.Y., 1969, p. 31. 285"The men who toiled in the workshops, in the arsenals, and in the studios, or those who had dropped their disdain of practice, considered the operations conducted on these premises a form of cognition." Paolo Rossi, Philosophy, Technologyl and the Arts jg_the Early Modern Era, trans. Salvator Attanasio, p. X. 286Alfred von Martin, The Sociology of the Renaissance, Harper Torchbooks, N.Y., 1963. PP. 15-16. 287John U. Nef, "The Genesis of Industrialism and of Modern Science (1540-1640)“, Essays jg_Honor of Conyers Read, ed. Norton Downs, University Of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 200-269. 288"As long as a national economy is in a state of underemployment, precious metals pouring into the market act as supplementary purchasing power and a factor in expansion. But as soon as the economy in question reaches its production limit, any introduction of new money leads to a rise in prices." Alexandre Chabert, "More About the Sixteenth-Century Price Revolution", Economy and Society jn_Ear1yModern Europe, p. 51. 289The literature dealing with the sixteenth-century "price revolution" is vast, and scholars are not yet agreed about its causes, consequences, or even if the term "price revolution" is accurate. However, nearly everybody is agreed that prices did rise all over Europe, with the greatest rise occuring after 1550. See, Economy and Society jg_Early 285 Modern Europe: Essays from the Annales, Ed. P. Burke. The entire volume is given over to articles devoted to the sixteenth-century "price revolution". Also, Y.S. Brenner, "The Inflation of Prices in England, 1551-1650", Economic History Review, XV, #2, pp. 266-284; J.D. Gould, "The Price Revolution Reconsideredwj'Economic Histpry_Review, XVII, #2, pp. 249-268; H.G. Kbnigsberger, "Property and the Price Revolution (Hainault, 1474-1573)", Economic History Review, IX, #1, pp. 1-15.; John U. Nef, "Prices and Industrial Capitalism in France and England, 1540-1640", Economic History Review, 1937, pp. 155-185; V. Zimyani, "A Typology of Central European Inflation in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries", Journal 9: the Economic History pf Europe, vol. 4, #2, 1975, pp. 399-410. 290 291 Leroy-Ladurie, p. 66. Ibid. pp. 233-234. 292 293 Utterstrdm, p. 23. Leroy-Ladurie, p. 44 and 282. 294"The Grand Dukes of Tuscany, Venice and Genoa moved tens of thousands of tons of grain from the Baltic and Black Sea, through the agency of international merchants and letters of exchange on Nuremburg and Antwerp, to make up for shortages during the calamitous 1590's in the Mediterranean." Braudel, p. 85. 295 296 Leroy-Ladurie, p. 67. Nef, The Cultural Foundations pf_Industrial Civilization, p. 42. 297"The enclosure of land into consolidated farms or holdings . . . placed agriculture on a new basis, even if the estate was leased out to tenants and its new owner was no more than a rent-receiver." Dobb, p. 125. 298 299 J.D. Gould, "The Price Revolution Reconsidered", pp. 249-268. Dobb, p. 160. 300Nef, The Cultural Foundations pf_Industria1 Civilization, p. 43. 301 302According to J. Cornwall, England's population grew from 2.2 million in 1500 to 3.75 million by 1600. J. Cornwall, "England's Population in the Early Sixteenth Century", Economic History Review, 2nd series, v. 33, (1970) pp. 32-44. Nef, The Conquest prthe Material World, pp. 230-231. 303Nef, The Conquest p:_the Material World, p. 234. 304 305Though the French took an active interest in mathematics during this time, they shied away from applying mathematics to business, and certainly to mechanization, which they did not care for at all. See, Ibid. p. 216. 286 Natalie Z. Davis, "Sixteenth-Century Frech Arithmetics on the Business Life", Journal pf_the History pf_Ideas, XXI, #1, pp. 18-48. 306". . . there was a close connection between sixteenth-century technology and the new conception of number." David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery, p. 105. ART 307A. N Whitehead, 113 Aims g Education, p. 71 308McLuhan, The Gutenberngalaxy, p. 76. For an extended discussion of the visuality of Rome see, Harold Innis, Empire and Communications. 309"There is apparently nothing in the ancient remains or in the classical literature to show that prior to Roman imperial times there was any idea of a unified pictorial space, and even then only of the most rudimentary kind." William Ivins, Art and Geometry, p. 40. 310 3”"And perhaps the most dramatic example of the triumph of the human will over the irregular lineaments of nature is the Roman grid method of dividing up the land.“ Yi-Fu Tuan, "Discrepancies Between Environmental Attitude and Behavior: Examples from Europe and China", p. 72. 312wi1iiam a. Brandt, fie Shape _o_f_ Medieval History: Studies 1:1 Modes pf Perception, p. 7. Ibid. p. 69. 313Ibid. p. 62. "In the Middle Ages the symbolist attitude was much more in evidence than the causal or the genetic attitude. Not that this latter mode of conceiving the world, as a process of evolution, was wholly absent. Medieval thought, too, sought to understand things by means of their origins. But, destitute of experimental methods, and neglecting even observation and analysis, it was reduced, in order to state genetic relations, to abstract deduction." Johan Huizinga, ng_ Waning pf_the Middle Ages, Doubleday Anchor Books, Doubleday and Co., N.Y., 1954, p. 202. 314The distinction and terminology are Brandt's. It is the clerical tradition Josiah Russell has in mind when he writes that twelfth-century historians, “did not have even the idea of history as the changing, developing, culture of‘the past." Twelfth Century Studies, p. 17. 315 316 317 Brandt, p. 63. Ibid. p. 65. Ibid. p. 51. 287 318Ibid. p. 93. 319The fourteenth-century mathematician Pecham said, ". . . geometry considers the line as a mathematical entity; perspective considers the line more as a natural than a mathematical entity." Quoted in Nicholas Steneck, Science and Creation jp_the Middle Ages, p. 43. 320Sheila Delany, in "Substructure and Superstructure: The Politics of Allegory in the Fourteenth Century", argues that the well-spring for these new artistic forms was the new emphasis upon logic originating with Jean Buridan, Nicholas Oresme, and William of Occam. 321Huizinga, p. 273. Huizinga goes on to say, "The art and literature of the fifteenth century in France and in the Netherlands are almost exclusively concerned with giving a finished and ornate form to a system of ideas which had long since ceased to grow. They are the servants of an expiring mode of thought." P. 274. 322Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles jp_th§ Egg gf_Humanism, p. 153. 323". . . music had a particular attraction for Renaissance artists because it had always been ranked as a mathematical science." Ibid. p. 117. 324Ibid. 3251bid. 325 p. 68. p. 7. Ibid. p. 116. 327Ibid. p. 117. 328Arnold Pacey, fléflalfigilwli 9- 97' 329wi11iam Ivins, 9p the Rationalization pf_Sight. DaCapo Press, N Y-, 1973, p. 9. 330 Ibid. p. 10. 331"As much as nationalism and individualism, perspective, both psychic and physical, is immediately the child of print technology." Marshall McLuhan, "Effects of the Improvements of Communications Media", p. 572. 332Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, p. 363 PERSONALITY AND SOCIETY 333J.H. Parry, Ihg_Aggngf_Reconnaissance, World Publishing Co., N.Y., 1963, p.1. 288 334See, Jean-Louis Flandrin, "Contraception, Marraige, and Sexual Relations in the Christian Nest"; Evelyne Patlagean, "Birth Control in the Early Byzantine Empire"; Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie, "Famine Amenorrhoea“, all from The Biology of Man in History: Selections from the Annales, trans. E. Forster and P. Ranum, _ed. by R. Forster and 0. Ranum, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, l975. 335"Monks and patrons alike believed that piety demanded only the observance of a precise daily routine, and as late as the eleventh century they considered the performance of liturgical ritual to be the essence of monastic dedication." Charles Radding, "Evolution of Medieval Mentaltites: A Cognitive-Structural Approach", p. 578. 336 337 338 Ibid. pp. 578-579. Ibid. p. 587. Ibid. p. 589. 3391bid. p. 594. 340 341Sidney Packard ckaims that twelfth century scientists operated "with a differentframe of mind" than scientists had before in Europe. He links that mind- set with the introduction of Arabic mathematics. The Twelfth Century: Ag.Interpretive Essay, p. 214. 342 Brandt, pp. 159-160. Brandt, pp. l23-l45. 343Frank Manuel, The ShapesgfiPhilOSOPhlca1 History, Po 35- 344Radding, p. 597. 345N.J.G. Pounds says that the literature from the period 1350-1500 shows, "a preoccupation with death." Ag_Economic History of_Medieval Europe, p. 441. 346"The men of the thirteenth century thought of measuring time in mechanical terms because they had developed a mechanical outlook of which the mills and the bell-ringing mechanisms were abundant and significant evidence." Carlo Cipolla, Clocks and Culture: l300-l700, p. 04. 347E.P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism", Past and Present, 38, p. 56. 348In the fourteenth century, "there took place both the destruction of an old, and the creation of a new perception of space." Zevedei Barbu, Problems of Historical Psychology, p. 35. 349Sebastian de Grazia writes, "The sense of time is important in many cases of pschotherapy. The expanses of time that days off and 289 vacations offer seem to bring to some persons the same sort of fear the agoraphobics have of open spaces. Hide-open time, like space is frightening." 9f Time, Work, and Leisure, p. 274. 350Braudel, p. 350 and Parry, p. l9. 351 352 Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, Avon Books, N.Y., p. 123. Bakhtin, PP. 271-273. 353"The idea that an author or an artist could clsim any property rights in his works arose only with the new wish to be original.“ Alfred von Martin, The Sociologygf the Renaissance, p. 40. 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