then it is easy to see that epistemological antinomies and their negation cannot be derived from these true facts. — PL Olcott

Then what did Godel do and how did he do it? Or rather, inasmuch as he rigorously derives his undecidable proposition, on what basis do you claim it impossible? And now I insist on your using English unless you are using symbols to prove/demonstrate a point.

I try to take my philosophy, such as it is - and maybe too generous to call it that - from the simple end of things, and to work up no higher than it will support itself. A stone is a stone, a stick a stick, a brick a brick. And if a scientist should tell us, as has been recently learned, that such things are made up of stunning emptiness, and their mass about two percent actual mass, the rest the energy of quarks traveling inside protons and neutrons at 300,000 km/second; and if we learn also that perception is merely representation but not to be confused with the thing itself, and so forth; still, it seems to me, while basic understanding may be subject to elucidation and qualification, it nevertheless still stands. The brick still a brick, whether for a bricklayer, Krazy Kat, or e. e. cummings.

Which means I can make no sense of "Transcendent Naturalism." Does anyone here have the ambition to try make some sense of the term in a sentence or two, or three?

I find this online:
"Transcendence—experience beyond the ordinary—is perhaps most powerfully felt not in our encounter with universals, but when we are overcome by particulars, experiences that are supremely individual. For some, it is triggered by new romance, an exercise high, the culminating moment of a particular song, knowing in the core of your being that you are doing something good, sudden acceptance of profound insight, or sex. It’s a very personal thing. Every once in a while, out of the blue...".

Is this it?

And this is just no correction at all. Near as i can tell from both reading your posts and your listed citations, all you have done is invoke an idea of a list of propositions that you have decreed "true facts." And there being no undecidable propositions among them - being excluded by you - you declare undecidability corrected. Unless you can mix in some sense, this stands both as nonsense and nonsensical

The only issue that I am correcting is the notion of decidability. — PL Olcott

A great thing! But tell, how have you corrected it?

I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself....

I am corrected. For the rest I think we agree, mostly. Lincoln may have been heir to all sorts of reflexive knee-jerk bigotry, but I imagine that on reflection he rebelled against it, and would have the more so, the longer he lived.
Likely you have read his Cooper Union address. If not I commend at least the opening; I myself delight in its - his - rhetorical power displayed there.

We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations are the result of pre-concert, but when we see a lot of framed timbers,... (237 ff, above). — Abraham Lincoln - August 21, 1858

And this is striking in view of our modern politics. It's easy to suppose that MAGA Trumpist Republicanism is just and only a creature of Trump, but too much is laid and in too many places and times, the parts all fitting together, for it all to be coincidence and all attributable to Trump.

and with the figure of Lincoln who was known for his debates against Stephen Douglas which firmly denounced slavery. — schopenhauer1

I assume you mean that Lincoln denounced slavery in remarks of his during the debates. I haven't read them recently, but I will claim here that you're wrong and I will accept correction when you provide.it . At some point Lincoln made clear that while he personally thought slavery a very great evil, his business as President was to preserve the Union, and there is his famous letter to Horace Greeley making this point clear. One of his problems with slavery during the Civil War was how to avoid driving the border states into the Southern camp.
As to the Lincoln-Douglas debates themselves - which all interested persons should read - Lincoln was completely well aware that Illinois was a state that itself stretched from North to South, and that attitudes and sensibilities differed depending on what end of the state you were in. Lincoln the very practiced public speaker simply tailored his remarks to his audience, troubling to avoid alienating anyone at either end of the state.
And there seems some discussion here as to what caused the Civil War - a useless discussion until and unless someone decides what is meant by "cause." There is very great explicit evidence that the Southern states, prioritizing slavery over everything else, were willing to venture all to maintain it.

Sorry if what I might be saying is unclear — Shawn

It might be useful if you approached from the most simple side instead of a more arcane side. That is, what exactly are you talking about; what exactly do you want to have happen? What I'm reading seems to say that you want to find out if different encoding schemes might in themselves resolve certain problems hitherto reckoned unresolvable - and that seems unlikely.

We simply correctly encode all of the true facts of the world. — PL Olcott

Then why bother with a machine/program? You have simply gone to the trouble of creating a data-base - in theory because there are significant problems im creating one for real.

Further, as you have defined a fact as a proposition defined as true, then being dismissive of "facts according to whom" is at the least disingenuous. And this in turn implies that while you in part seem to know what a fact is, you do not in fact know what one is. That is, that facts are never true. This a formal distinction that has not much use in the ordinary world, but is critical here. The problem is that in defining it true, you then take it to be true, and that only possible through either a deliberate or ignorant disregard of a distinction between instrumental truth, e.g., gravity is a force, the atom is like a small solar system, and a priori truth. The one being conditionally true and perhaps otherwise untrue, the other being always universally and necessarily true.

So you have created in theory a listing of a lot of your or someone's opinions. Can you demonstrate having done any better than that?

Not at all - for a person. But all the machine has got is probability and some kind of heuristics.

You seem to be in the position of a carpenter with a hammer who insists that his hammer drives nails, the problem being that the hammer can be used to drive nails, but that there never was nor will be a hammer that itself drives any nails. You have claimed seemingly endlessly and relentlessly claimed that your program/machine does something. I am just attempting to find out from you what exactly it does, and if relevant, how.

So far I think your machine just generates strings of symbols as candidates for inclusion in a list, but that apparently require the judgment of a person for that inclusion.

Ok, I understand your answer that meaning is assigned by people, the strings of which translated by the machine into a kind of index and score, and that the machine then associates strings on the basis of their index and scores. But these associations are probabilistic only, and neither in themselves truth bearing or producing, Assuming the program is creating some master list of true statements, how is the truth of any particular statement judged, if not by a person?

Good to distinguish between the abstract "ownership" and what we might call the urge to own(ership). If no one owns anything, then someone(s)/something(s) own everything. If ownership is the right to dispose, then non-ownership implies no right to dispose. But it is the nature of the world that a lot of things need disposal one way or other.

Consider donuts. Who gets the last donut? If by common decree no one gets the last donut, then who gets the next-to-last donut?

Or from the Netherlands: I am under the impression that in the Netherlands are provided many readily identifiable bicycles that do not belong to anyone. Any person may take any such bicycle and ride it to their destination, leaving it there for anyone else to use and ride.

And perhaps a lesson gleaned from these: in order for these to work, there must be an adequate supply, whether of donuts or bicycles. And the means, wherewithal, and will to provide them.

And the idea of no ownership whatsoever seems quickly to crash into some realities, which are easy enough to imagine.

Facts are sentences that are defined as true. — PL Olcott

That's a pretty good definition! But you're missing the whole point. Who or what defines, and on what basis or by what criteria? If it's humans all the way down, I'll take that as an answer, but that will leave the question as to how your whole program will work, in as much as it will have to be preloaded with that which it is supposed to produce.

of Rudolf Carnap / Richard Montague {meaning postulates} that stipulate relations between finite strings as providing the semantic meanings that form an accurate
model of the general knowledge of the actual world. — PL Olcott

English, please. Simple sentences are good.

I'll try to make it simpler. Given some string, call it Σ, we can start by supposing that Σ is/is not meaningful, is/is not true. How do you know/decide? Because I infer you have your program do it, the question is really, how does your program decide?

Expressions that are {true on the basis of meaning — PL Olcott

Ah, meaning. What is that? How does your program assess or even recognize meaning? I am asking the simplest and most basic questions because it seems to me you must have both asked and answered them. But so far I have no evidence of that in this thread, or seen it in your other threads.

Above your syllogism as an example of a TPO

{All animals are living things}
{All cats are animals}
therefore {All cats are living things} — PL Olcott

There are many more possible premises/conclusions. The questions here are how does your PTO or your computer know what is true or meaningful? How does it construct the right syllogism from the possible premises?

{All cats are animals} — PL Olcott

You have a programming language - where does a statement about cats come from? How do you know "no cats are animals" is false and not itself an axiom?

I happen to like RGC's style. While maintaining a crystal-clear and erudite conversational tone, he nevertheless makes exact and substantial claims and then backs them - is why I asked you for your critique. I cannot tell if you have a copy of An Essay..... It comprises five parts, I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IIIc. A hefty but very readable 340+ pages. But if I may suggest, Part I is all you need, about 55 pages. Then for a treat, chapter XXV.

I'm not convinced either by the principle of the logic of question-and-answer, — BirdInitials

Alas! This pretty much indicates you're not acquainted with RGC's arguments, how they work, what they're for or about.

And I won't try to summarize, but I will claim that anyone who grasps his ideas of absolute presuppositions is forever inoculated against all sorts of foolishness, and anyone unacquainted hobbled or worse in many kinds of arguments. So I hope you will give it a try, maybe an hour or two's reading, and we can then reconnect.

Many of my students use.... — scherz0

There's little accounting for what students will do. More interesting is what you do. Assuming you're teaching philosophy and that you have some legitimate pedantic purpose in allowing them to use sources like PSE and TPF, what is your intention/goal in so doing?

If we merely encoded all of the rules of algorithms, logic, and programming in a single formal system — PL Olcott

All right, a programming language.

truth preserving operations (TPOS) — PL Olcott

An example or two, please?

And the Truths these TPOs are expected to preserve, whence them - your having only a language? And, "no sequence"? How do you define "no sequence"?

Let's imagine you generate a listing of all possible propositions/statements of 100 or fewer symbols in length - a very long list. Let's further imagine you can test for and eliminate all nonsense strings, leaving only those that are syntactically "healthy." Still a long list. Now to test each for truth with your TPOs. The result for each item on the list being either T for true, or F for everything else. What is your specification for both the TPO and truth itself that the TPO can distinguish what is true from what is not?

And what about strings of longer than 100 symbols? There are lots of true propositions/statements longer than 100 symbols that your TPOs will record as F.

Unless you have already created an encyclopedia of sorts. Then you could test against that, but that would be very far indeed from being either conclusive or exhaustive or in itself interesting.

That is not the point. — PL Olcott

That is the point. Not only have you not got it; it may not be achievable - that depending on the exact details and definitions. You invoke an oracle, but give no account of it other than some hand-waving. And what do you mean by "verified fact"? Is a verified fact different from just a fact? How do you verify it - what does verified mean? Do you even know what a fact is? Do you know the difference between fact and true?
Of course you can do what you want and claim what you want. But when your claims cross over into nonsense, they amount to an illegitimate appropriation. Make it legitimate.

In the Essay, he says "Every statement that anybody ever makes is made in answer to a question"; and also "If the meaning of a proposition is relative to the question it answers, its truth must be relative to the same thing".
I'm not now convinced by any of this. — BirdInitials

Hi. The first quote is quickly found, but I cannot find the second. Can you pin it down? The first is of course in the chapter titled, "On Presupposing." And the chapter is about, not propositions, but suppositions, relative and absolute; and the point he makes about them is that, "The logical efficacy of a supposition does not depend upon the truth of what is supposed, or even on its being thought true, but only on its being supposed," (28). And so on. Suppositions, then, not propositions.

I assume you have read An Essay on Metaphysics, although I wonder how much and closely. What is an example of something you're not convinced of - keeping in mind what the book is about?

The problem is that you have a set. But it is by no means clear how you create that set.

(a) A set of finite string semantic meanings that form an accurate
model of the general knowledge of the actual world. — PL Olcott

Ok, but how exactly do you decide what is, or is not, a member of this set?

True(L,x) — PL Olcott

Tell us, how do you know True(L,x) is true?

If you don't know that, you don't know the very basics of Greek. — Lionino

I know that if I look at my Greek textbooks they will contain different pronunciations for some of the Greek letters. And apparently modern Greek usage doesn't apply. Which means that in terms of the question, you also don't know the basics. The difference between us being that I know I don't know, and you think you do. But again, I asked you straight up for an English equivalent, and you dodged. Not a good look for you!

My quote is aimed at whoever is trying to claim things that don't belong to them, — Lionino

And how, exactly - or on what grounds - do you establish what it is that is so exclusively owned? It seems to me that culture is the actual out of the possible that settles on some group, but that in the settling at the same time manifests its capacity to have settled on anyone. Thus undercutting any claim to any exclusivity except for the accident of the historical.

Reading something exactly does make it part of my culture
— tim wood
No it doesn't.
— Lionino
You will, then, be good enough to make clear exactly what does happen when I - or anyone - reads a book. — tim wood

"I read a book therefore that book is part of my culture".
Just... what? — Lionino

Here, let me help you. I don't know how to make brownies. I read a cookbook and learn how to make brownies. Now I know how to make brownies. Get the drift?

Harry Potter — a book widely read in Hungary — is not part of Hungarian culture. — Lionino

It is now. Is it part of ancient and historical Hungarian culture? Of course not. It is instead a small accretion to it - and maybe for the children who read it, not so small. You would seem to understand "culture" as a kind of fixed artifact, and no doubt there are aspects and parts of culture that are generally accepted as such - this granted although itself being not-so-simple. But that is not the limit or boundary of culture and never was.

But maybe simpler if you just state your point(s) in simple language, then we might see if we agree or disagree on some matter of substance.
— tim wood
My message is stated the way it needs to be stated, — Lionino

And here again the spoor of the troll: when asked a question, or to clarify a point, they evade, avoid, attack.

I confess, however, to a share in this: I should have asked you what you meant by "culture." Now I am pretty sure that at the least we intend different meanings here. What I mean, most briefly, is that which is not me, that informs and instructs me as to what I may do/think, can do/think, should do/think, while leaving me room to do/think none of it.

What do you mean by "culture"?

By the way, the transliteration is mine; I made it up. As for the letter η, if you have an English equivalent I should be glad to use it.

I can avoid the word and re-state my position. I was simply discussing ancient Jewish and biblical perspectives towards.... — BitconnectCarlos

Quite so. I'm not on against you - both you're correct, and they're not your words - but more holding up something for a close mutual look. Whatever the word or words, "value," "purity," whatever, the female is commodified and judged as such. And it is here that is one of the places that imo great evil is built into the bible. And it is easy enough to reverse-engineer some seeming sense into it all. But in my accounting, the evils are intrinsic and far outweigh any good, and the much more so today.

you can start learning... (or greek with the NT) — BitconnectCarlos

Began a while ago with the Septuagint and NT. In personal terms very much a work-in-progress. But here are two quick examples of what I call problems. "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want"; familiar enough.

Here it is in the Greek:
Κυριος ποιμαίνει με καὶ ούδεν με ὑστερήσει
kurios poimainei me kai ouden me usterasei

Translation:
(The) Lord shepherds me and nothing me shall fail/come short/be deficient/be too late.
The last word being not-so-simple. In English, shepherd is a noun; in the Greek, a verb. And the last word in English is a matter of my wants, in the Greek what God won't do. I'm told in Hebrew, the word for shepherd, here, is a noun also used as a verb - or something like. And so even this miniscule bit of the corpus becomes a rabbit-hole of meaning.

Or, from the same psalm,
ὴ ράβδος σου καὶ ὴ βακτήρια σου, αὖταὶ με παρακέλεσαν
hay rabdos sou kai hay baktaria sou. autai me parakelesan

Translation:
The rod of you and the staff of you, they me....
They me what? The usual translation is "comfort." And where in many other places the word appears, it is again translated "comfort." But that is not what it means. The root verb is kaleo, meaning (to) call, summon(s), invite. The prefix para- is added, parakaleo, and this (to) call to one, invite, encourage, exhort, demand. cheer on, excite. And as well the Holy Ghost is the "paraclete," the one called out to, the helper, advocate, also comforter, but also encourager. And to the degree the reader can distinguish between being comforted and all of those other things - if only he knew they were there - he or she might begin to have a real problem with his text.

None of this a problem with a ready solution, like a maths problem. But instead a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks he or she knows what their Bible is saying or means.

You may like this series of lectures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo-YL-lv3RY&list=PLh9mgdi4rNeyuvTEbD-Ei0JdMUujXfyWi

Deut 22 deals with a woman maintaining purity before marriage. — BitconnectCarlos

I have no argument with you, nor am looking for one. Maybe we can look at some of this stuff together. Anyway. I invite you to weigh that word "purity," what it means and what it implies, as far out through all the ripples it causes as you can follow. And perhaps how and why it is used, by whom, and what for. Imho, it ought to occur to you that a whole great lot is packed into that word, that at the least is questionable. And yet as one little word it is easy - too easy - to swallow whole. And who so insensitive to the graceful flow of the whole to suggest that maybe, just maybe, purity not only has absolutely nothing to do with anything relevant, but becomes an excuse for and cornerstone of great evil, that most folks aren't even aware of, taking it all as "gospel."

And I find this in much of the Bible, the pill easy to swallow, that is a poison.

I recommend Alter's translation. Word for word. With commentary. — BitconnectCarlos

Thank you for this! At Amazon I read most of his almost unreadably long intro., and his commentary defending some of his word choices. Very interesting stuff - and I pretty much buy it. He may not be exactly right all the time, that judgment beyond me, but he does seem to me to be on exactly the right road. There is also the new (1985) Jewish Publishing Service (JPS) Tanakh which claims to be an entirely new translation.

I certainly don't fully understand fully Paul. — BitconnectCarlos

Anyone who can say this already understands more than do most folks. A digression: in about the eighth grade (early 60s), our Hungarian history teacher asked us who we thought the most influential person of the 20th century was. I think all of us answered Winston Churchill. He considered it, and then submitted Lenin as the creator of the Soviet Russia - a lesson provoking thinking even long after the lesson. And of all time to date may well just be Paul.

Hi. More likely, the person who has done at least some of the work to understand Paul will be modest in his claims, like Richard Feynman who said that no one understood quantum mechanics. And Leviticus indeed: if you're going to rape and get caught, then do it in the city. Then maybe you can marry your way out of it. And yes, biblical, just not the modern word or sense of the modern word.

Whatever the virtues of the Bible - and I would not know even how to approach that; maybe a topic for a thread - too often it is a trap and those caught in it preyed upon by people who know better. And translations that are off, or in some cases just plain wrong, part of the problem.

Best advice I had about the Bible was to keep in mind that it was not written to me, for me, or about me, and that anyone who claims that it is telling me what to do is taking several leaps that are not in the Bible. Not to say that I cannot or should not try to benefit from reading it, just that I am not the audience.



.

And,

Fornication was frowned upon but surely occurred. — BitconnectCarlos

A quick rule for most: if you think you understand Paul, then you don't. As to fornication, that word does not appear in the Bible. The word in question is πορνεία, porneia, and is translated either as fornication, a grotesque misappropriation, or as sexual immorality, which is maybe closer but leaves open the question, for those who ask, who decides. The word itself refers to the activities of male and female prostitutes, but not in any modern sense, but more towards temple prostitution. And Herodotus tells us that in many places sex-work was considered a reasonable way for a woman to make her fortune.

The so-called Christian attitude towards human sexuality being mainly one of denial and vilifying what's left, without, apparently, acknowledging it is a part of human being, which, like a lot of things Christian, along with the good it claims to have done, has also done real harm.

I see his point. Your saying by [you are] allowing the written words and stories of those much like yourself to enrich your lifeand instill the values they were meant to instill and have instilled unto those who were presently involved in the story,you yourself are now effectively part of that story, or at least able to gleam a sufficient amount of experience and culture from said tales to a comparable degree of those who lived in/during said times and to place yourself within the story as if you yourself were there. — Outlander

He is saying that's still more living vicariously, a lesser depth or dimension than that of those who the story was literally about or involved chiefly due to the fact such tales despite any level of detail and depth of perspective will always fall short to that of a person who was born and raised in such a time as that was literally their reality and all they've ever known from birth til death, a reality that cannot be "visited" and "unvisited" the way we can choose to read or not read a book and so remains more of a cultural enrichment or immersion activity similar to a trip to another country as opposed to full on cultural transcendence and ultimate understanding. — Outlander

Which is in sum to say almost nothing at all. Let's take his example of Yukio Mishima. According to him, not being Japanese, I won't "get" Mishima. In a trivial sense, some truth. But let's look a little deeper. What does it mean to be Japanese, in this sense? Obviously to be a person born in Japan of Japanese parents - if there is any other definition, I am unaware of it. Does that mean the Japanese person will get Mishima in ways that others cannot? This implies that being Japanese is implicitly something shared by Japanese people apart from the mere fact of their being Japanese. And while many share many things, nothing is universal; Japan is multi-layered every-which-way, from Ainu in the North to Okinawans in the South. To say they're all alike in ways different from other people, that allows them a special appreciation of their own literature withheld from others, while containing a grain of truth, is mainly nonsense. Just as, beyond the mere fact of being American, nothing is universal about Americans, although many of us will share many things.

But all of us, differences notwithstanding, are also alike in that we share many things. And literature is one place where we can share them. That is, by the practice of the right reading skills, we can "get it." Does that make me Japanese, or an ancient Greek, or anyone else I read about? Of course not. But at the same time the literature is a door I can go through, and experience and learn from.

A couple of points: books more than a hundred years old are about people who are dead, and about places and things that either no longer exist or no longer exist as they did. And, if you think vicarious experience is not part of reading literature, then you do not know how to read or what reading is. If you never "try on" Madam LaFarge or the Vengeance or Sydney Carton, or attempt a dialogue with them or to encounter them, then A Tale of Two Cities must seem and be a great waste of time to you. And the same for every other work of literature.

Um, no. A grain of truth, maybe, but don't confuse a grain with a pile of grains. Not the same thing. I suggest suspending judgment in favour of some reading, and let your reading range. Soon enough you will soak up enough to have a beginning understanding and be able to more closely direct your efforts. And no K in Lincoln - for a number of reasons.

Reading something exactly does make it part of my culture
— tim wood
No it doesn't. — Lionino

You will, then, be good enough to make clear exactly what does happen when I - or anyone - reads a book.

Greeks cannot read the Iliad in original Greek, any more than English speakers Beowulf
— tim wood
Not comparable. Beowulf is in a different language than modern English. — Lionino

I had occasion to place my copy of the Iliad before a Greek, because (at that time) I thought he could help me with a bit of translation/understanding. And he graciously explained that he could not, because he couldn't read it, making clear that he could not read any of it. But what's the point? What is your point, exactly? As it happened, I could read more of it than he could.

You are just arguing for the sake of arguing. Example:
"Scholastics" with a capital "S"? What do you mean by that?
— tim wood
As if the capitalisation of a word that may be capitalised somehow undermines the understanding of something. — Lionino

The fact is that it's two different words depending on capitalization. I simply wanted clarification as to what you were referring to. And the attempt to reconcile Pagan and Christian beliefs/dogma/thought was already underway with Constantine, c., 330 AD.

it does not make any sense
— tim wood
It doesn't make sense to those who.... — Lionino

I wasn't referring to any quality of your thought, but to my being unable to discern whatever that thought might have been. You referred to the Great Wall, and then, it seemed, suggested that either the Great Wall had nothing to do with thieving hordes, or something else didn't, either way I couldn't make sense of it.

And so forth. But maybe simpler if you just state your point(s) in simple language, then we might see if we agree or disagree on some matter of substance.

Then, if we are still using analogies, maybe it can be said that the civil war was just a war? — Linkey

Meaning?

I heard that the American Civil War was in some sense the second American Revolution, please clarify this. — Linkey

The idea is encapsulated in, and can be found therein with a careful reading of, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. - And btw, all of Lincoln's published speeches and letters worth reading, including his Cooper Union Address, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and his House Divided speech.

The idea is that before the Civil War, it was the United States are, and after, the United States is.

The Constitution, c. 1792, was held by many to be about and concerning the powers of the new Federal government, and not (at all) the states. That is, the several states were still sovereign. This resulted in a tension that still exists today - arguably necessarily. Slavery was a major source of tension, and having boiled for about 65 years, it exploded into the Civil War. Among the results were the Civil War amendments, 13, 14, 15 (if memory serves), which established federal control over some things, and laid the groundwork for more control over more things.

And it might be argued that as the revolution of 1775 established the separation from England, it did not altogether establish a nation, and that the Civil War finally did.

Short answer, but you can do a lot of research into the history of the thing. Even much material on Youtube. Caveat, starting almost with the end of the Civil War in 1865, a lot of people tried, have tried, and are trying to whitewash the role of the Southern states before and during the war, and after the war.

Reading something doesn't make it part of your culture, you are not Japanese because you read Mishima. — Lionino

Reading something exactly does make it part of my culture - and maybe that is the source of your confusion. Of course it does not make me Japanese, but no one ever claimed it would or could.

And ditto with the classics. But with this qualification: they are all long dead and long gone. Admittedly translations are not the original, but, being itself only a trivial observation, that is very far from the end of the discussion. You mention the Iliad and the apparent need to read it in Greek. News flash: Greeks cannot read the Iliad in original Greek, any more than English speakers Beowulf.

I'm pretty sure you know how to read, but like the driver who knows how to operate a motor vehicle but does not know how to drive, perhaps there are aspects of reading literature you're not well-informed about or were never taught. In briefest terms, if you wait for a story to come to you, it will never arrive: you will never get it. Instead you have to go out and meet it half-way and more than half-way. The older or more remote in any way the story is the further you have to go. The first stop being suspension of disbelief, and then you go on from there, interacting, being there, until you enter the story yourself. And with luck, application, and practice you arrive at not so much agreement or disagreement, but what underlies, a presence, however alien, and understanding. Njal's Saga an excellent example of such a journey: a text that is at first alien and remote, that with reading becomes vividly alive.

But it's also work, and if you don't do it, you won't get it.

It is beyond you just like it is beyond all of us to really understand the Great Wall of China — it is not our story. The prime difference in the latter case is that there aren't hordes trying to steal that heritage because they have no ancient history. — Lionino

I thought to comment on this but then recognized it does not make any sense that I can find. Try again?

Greek and Roman classics are not part of anybody's culture except the people who speak their languages — that doesn't apply to most here —, and the reason for that is exactly Scholastics. When it comes to the Bible, it is true, our morality is heavily Christianised whether we want it or not, whether we are atheist or evangelical. — Lionino

"Scholastics" with a capital "S"? What do you mean by that? And as to the Bible, clearly you're babbling. On your own account the Bible is not/cannot be read today, and thus any "Christianization" of ethics cannot be biblical. And anyway, I prefer the term "civilizing." As in the civilizing of ethics. Which, on consideration, less than half the world is concerned with.

In sum, your claims, perhaps having a grain of truth, are disqualified by the extravagance of them. Better, I think, to have been more parsimonious in your remarks, justified by the strength and reach of your resources.

Anyone who entertains nostalgia for Collingwood...(I don't) — BirdInitials

Perhaps wrongly I infer criticism of RGC's ideas or at least some of them. If you have any criticism, please share - I'm not smart enough to figure out any on my own, and having read a small bunch of his books, would appreciate correction where needed. The author of the article you referenced seems to have thought highly of RGC.

You will find comprehensive answers here:
The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael Gillespie

And you don't even have to read the whole thing.

https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Origins-Modernity-Michael-Gillespie/dp/0226293467/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2W2DQ8DXXV8C0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.G5iRyE9Wgb6mk6RP_S0uCt9RcZdxPmXw1qJw3WOuHEAmq5QU0qX7u7_8N_FKT6JtULdBVuCTIymlheuzkZoql3SiQBnUpQ8cm1r1kenATO19A2D4BcwW1b_ZxEF1ZbFXclZqM-QpJ84Kbacm9_kxlYPuEB9UMmV-vUOhR-ufB09Thv66GfImc8CLLRpzOjl9AoNEjdTs7gTyjHYbzRVaCzdD_P_oqyhizYONfEfUS8k.1hAKMATODsRXIHEP06_vuvR9b87bDJMLtoJJGRAtY4o&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Theological+Origins+of+Modernity&qid=1715787555&sprefix=the+theological+origins+of+modernity%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-1

Or if you're lucky, your local library.

Thank you. I read it. I commend the same to you and anyone else interested for its educational and probative value.

So far everyone appears to know what a war crime is except me. Anyone care to fill me in? Anyone?