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Les Grecs ont-ils cru à leurs mythes?
"[Veyne's] present book has some kinship with his sprightly theoretical work Comment on ecrit l'histoire ; and he declares that its aim was to provoke reflection on the way our conception of truth is built up and changes over the centuries...The style is brilliant and exhilarating."--Jasper Griffin, Times Literary Supplement
168 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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2267 people want to read
About the author
Paul Veyne
90 books66 followersPaul Veyne was a French historian and a specialist on Ancient Rome. A former student of the École normale supérieure and member of the École française de Rome, he was professor at the Collège de France.
Professeur honoraire au Collège de France, Paul Veyne était un des plus grands historiens français de l’Antiquité romaine. Ses nombreuses publications sur la sociologie romaine ou les mythes grecs, rédigés d’une plume alerte et joyeuse, l’ont fait connaître du grand public.
http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Veyne
Professeur honoraire au Collège de France, Paul Veyne était un des plus grands historiens français de l’Antiquité romaine. Ses nombreuses publications sur la sociologie romaine ou les mythes grecs, rédigés d’une plume alerte et joyeuse, l’ont fait connaître du grand public.
http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Veyne
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August 22, 2021
The Ethics of Journalism
One of the academic hoops that almost all doctoral students must jump through to obtain their degree is demonstration of a ‘complete knowledge’ of their chosen topic. This is usually interpreted to mean a mastery of the most recent professional literature - authors, controversies, unsolved problems, methods used etc. The candidate is expected to enter into and absorb the academic culture he or she wants to join before anyone will take seriously his or her views about how that culture might be improved. Before writing there must be total immersion.
Some, perhaps many, find this requirement tedious at best and at worst entirely irrelevant to the intellectual project they have in mind. But from the ancient Greeks onward, it is this certified knowledge of what has gone before that is the sine qua non of respectable ideas. Not truth, or originality, or practical significance, but tradition - what has been handed on from others. One may criticise, modify, or destroy the views of another but only after one has demonstrated an understanding of these views.
Since the birth of the university in the Middle Ages, this requirement has been enforced through the existence of a community of scholars which is broadly in agreement about the content of the relevant tradition - the vulgate or received texts - upon which intellectual certification is based. Without this community, advance is made impossible, among other reasons because the definition of advance itself would be moot. The fact that many of the best minds balk at the requirement to serve a sort of apprenticeship or noviciate, doesn’t mitigate the dominance of the community. They will only be successful if they can show how their ideas fit, or don’t, with the ideas of their colleagues both past and present.
By the standards of intellectual life, ever since dominated by the university, ancient writers of events were journalists not historians. They wrote what was reported to them, generally in good faith, but with little effort to assess the actual occurrence of events. Internal consistency in an account was sufficient to accept it as ‘true’. Or at least sufficiently credible to be used as a focus of intellectual contemplation. What was presented were not definitive facts but a melange of eye-witness reporting, tall tales, and authorial inferences. They rarely argued a case but aimed to set forth what had been passed down with commentary. Imagination was the foundation of the entire process, but imagination sparked by the same attention tradition as subsequent ‘qualified’ types.
Veyne is explicit in his view of both history and journalism and: “... the analogy between ancient history and the deontology or methodology of modem journalism. A reporter adds nothing to his credibility by including his infonnant's identity. We judge his value on internal criteria. We need only read him to know whether he is intelligent, impartial, or precise and whether he has a broad cultural background.” His presumption (and implication) is clear: neither history nor journalism can be judged with reference to either ‘the facts’ nor external authority. The ‘truth’ is only accessible within the text itself and by the standards of the culture from which it emanates.
This is likely to be disconcerting to positivists and even less rigid scientific types who are trained in the methods of the university. But that is because those folk exist within the fantasy that words can be matched against reality and then assessed for their degree of correlation. That this is impossible was obvious to the Greeks who considered the community of readers to be constituted as laymen such as themselves - educated, discerning, interested in their culture but not experts - who were able to make judgments of value. Truth for this community is constituted by that which is significant to contemplate, not that which should be considered as factually correct much less believed in the Christian sense. Myth was intended to provoke thought - moral, psychological, spiritual, and social - not faith. To believe was to value not to affirm. In that sense the Greeks believed their myths.
In our era, journalism and journalistic readership appear to have lost two key attributes when compared with their Greek forebears. As Veyne suggests, the ideal of deontological (value free) reporting is a modern conceit. It simply cannot be accomplished. Nor is it desirable. Such reporting implies the rejection of tradition and therefore the very culture in which the writing takes place. The readership is often similarly rootless. It doesn’t possess the ability to identify the lack of cultural erudition or the internal coherence of what they read. From a cultural perspective they are illiterate. They believe what they read with the fervour of faith - the more salacious, the more faith they invest. This has probably been the case for generations. But the triumph of the the likes of Trump and QAnon make the case without question. Journalism as the Greeks knew it is dead.
One of the academic hoops that almost all doctoral students must jump through to obtain their degree is demonstration of a ‘complete knowledge’ of their chosen topic. This is usually interpreted to mean a mastery of the most recent professional literature - authors, controversies, unsolved problems, methods used etc. The candidate is expected to enter into and absorb the academic culture he or she wants to join before anyone will take seriously his or her views about how that culture might be improved. Before writing there must be total immersion.
Some, perhaps many, find this requirement tedious at best and at worst entirely irrelevant to the intellectual project they have in mind. But from the ancient Greeks onward, it is this certified knowledge of what has gone before that is the sine qua non of respectable ideas. Not truth, or originality, or practical significance, but tradition - what has been handed on from others. One may criticise, modify, or destroy the views of another but only after one has demonstrated an understanding of these views.
Since the birth of the university in the Middle Ages, this requirement has been enforced through the existence of a community of scholars which is broadly in agreement about the content of the relevant tradition - the vulgate or received texts - upon which intellectual certification is based. Without this community, advance is made impossible, among other reasons because the definition of advance itself would be moot. The fact that many of the best minds balk at the requirement to serve a sort of apprenticeship or noviciate, doesn’t mitigate the dominance of the community. They will only be successful if they can show how their ideas fit, or don’t, with the ideas of their colleagues both past and present.
By the standards of intellectual life, ever since dominated by the university, ancient writers of events were journalists not historians. They wrote what was reported to them, generally in good faith, but with little effort to assess the actual occurrence of events. Internal consistency in an account was sufficient to accept it as ‘true’. Or at least sufficiently credible to be used as a focus of intellectual contemplation. What was presented were not definitive facts but a melange of eye-witness reporting, tall tales, and authorial inferences. They rarely argued a case but aimed to set forth what had been passed down with commentary. Imagination was the foundation of the entire process, but imagination sparked by the same attention tradition as subsequent ‘qualified’ types.
Veyne is explicit in his view of both history and journalism and: “... the analogy between ancient history and the deontology or methodology of modem journalism. A reporter adds nothing to his credibility by including his infonnant's identity. We judge his value on internal criteria. We need only read him to know whether he is intelligent, impartial, or precise and whether he has a broad cultural background.” His presumption (and implication) is clear: neither history nor journalism can be judged with reference to either ‘the facts’ nor external authority. The ‘truth’ is only accessible within the text itself and by the standards of the culture from which it emanates.
This is likely to be disconcerting to positivists and even less rigid scientific types who are trained in the methods of the university. But that is because those folk exist within the fantasy that words can be matched against reality and then assessed for their degree of correlation. That this is impossible was obvious to the Greeks who considered the community of readers to be constituted as laymen such as themselves - educated, discerning, interested in their culture but not experts - who were able to make judgments of value. Truth for this community is constituted by that which is significant to contemplate, not that which should be considered as factually correct much less believed in the Christian sense. Myth was intended to provoke thought - moral, psychological, spiritual, and social - not faith. To believe was to value not to affirm. In that sense the Greeks believed their myths.
In our era, journalism and journalistic readership appear to have lost two key attributes when compared with their Greek forebears. As Veyne suggests, the ideal of deontological (value free) reporting is a modern conceit. It simply cannot be accomplished. Nor is it desirable. Such reporting implies the rejection of tradition and therefore the very culture in which the writing takes place. The readership is often similarly rootless. It doesn’t possess the ability to identify the lack of cultural erudition or the internal coherence of what they read. From a cultural perspective they are illiterate. They believe what they read with the fervour of faith - the more salacious, the more faith they invest. This has probably been the case for generations. But the triumph of the the likes of Trump and QAnon make the case without question. Journalism as the Greeks knew it is dead.
October 17, 2025
Not an easy book, not at all. Of course, that's inherent to the subject, or rather the question posed: did the Greeks really believe their own myths, that infinitely complex universe of capricious gods and improbable heroes; did they think the stories about them were truly true? Anyone expecting a straightforward answer to this question will be disappointed. The French historian of antiquity, Paul Veyne (1930-2022), rightly points out that concepts like "belief in/of" or "truth" are problematic in themselves, because what exactly do we mean by them? And did they cover the same meaning 2500 years ago as they do now? This is therefore, to a certain extent, more of a philosophical book that probes the relationship between representation and reality, and thus inevitably falls within the postmodernist sphere. As I've said, really not an easy read, also because of the - French style - meandering approach of Veyne. More on this in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
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October 8, 2025French historian of antiquity Paul Veyne primarily examines the work of the historians of antiquity, with Herodotus, Polybius, and Pausanias prominently featured. Through various winding paths, he arrives at the proposition that the Greeks knew that the mythical stories weren't exactly true, as we now understand "true," but they did believe in them, in the sense that they saw them as a coherent whole that made it possible to interpret reality in a way they found transparent and plausible (Veyne uses the term "allegorical"). From this perspective, "believing in/in" comes to mean something quite different than we generally understand in our culture, marked by Jewish exclusivism and Christian dogmatism.
I don't know if "allegorical" is entirely accurate. Because that's where I find a weakness in this book: Veyne refers primarily to texts and narratives when referring to myths, thereby ignoring the broader field of rituals and cults. Perhaps he would have found a shorter path to his conclusion if he had included that in his research. Because in my view rituals and cults – more than stories or texts – are ways to make sense of the surrounding, chaotic reality. They offer greater proximity and consequently more security (in the sense of peace of mind, or knowing where one belongs to) than the more cerebral aspect of narratives. And precisely that security, literally the feeling of being situated in reality, is one of the most important existential needs. Ultimately, what Veyne writes about the difference between believing in/about and being true is correct, but at the same time, he ignores a significant part of human culture.
There's a lot more to say about this short book, I only focussed on the central question it poses. But Veyne loses himself in a lot of side paths, not always clearly following a thread of thought. Which makes for a rather arduous reading.
I don't know if "allegorical" is entirely accurate. Because that's where I find a weakness in this book: Veyne refers primarily to texts and narratives when referring to myths, thereby ignoring the broader field of rituals and cults. Perhaps he would have found a shorter path to his conclusion if he had included that in his research. Because in my view rituals and cults – more than stories or texts – are ways to make sense of the surrounding, chaotic reality. They offer greater proximity and consequently more security (in the sense of peace of mind, or knowing where one belongs to) than the more cerebral aspect of narratives. And precisely that security, literally the feeling of being situated in reality, is one of the most important existential needs. Ultimately, what Veyne writes about the difference between believing in/about and being true is correct, but at the same time, he ignores a significant part of human culture.
There's a lot more to say about this short book, I only focussed on the central question it poses. But Veyne loses himself in a lot of side paths, not always clearly following a thread of thought. Which makes for a rather arduous reading.
May 26, 2014
Paul-Marie Veyne est un historien français spécialiste de la Rome antique. Dans ce livre, « les Grecs ont-ils cru à leurs mythes ? », il s’agit d’essayer d’utiliser cette question pour faire sentir toutes les difficultés d’appréhender, pour les historiens antiques qui les relatent, la vérité. Il déborde même sur des considérations beaucoup plus générales en trait avec le scepticisme. Le livre n’est pas tant bâti comme une démonstration sur un plan rigoureux aboutissant à une conclusion logique, mais s’étale plutôt sur le ton informel de la causerie qui n’hésite pas à emprunter quelques détours. Un vaste ensemble de faits édifiants tirés de l’antiquité permettent d’illustrer la complexité de la réponse, laquelle semble à chaque fois se dérober à toute systématisation réductrice. Et pour faire mieux mettre le doigt sur telle ou telle interprétation de l’attitude des historiens anciens, il n’hésite pas à faire des parallèles avec l’époque moderne, pour expliquer la ductilité de nos opinions, les forces qui agissent insensiblement sur elles, et tout ce qui est mis en place pour borner et baliser l’autorité du savoir. C’est presque plus un livre philosophique qu’historique.
Le livre ne m’a pas transporté dans le sens où, en dehors de Pausanias qui se taille la part du lion, j’étais déjà familiarisé avec la plupart des éléments cités par Veyne, et que l’opinion que je peux avoir sur la question est assez proche de la sienne. Le livre ne manque pas de piquant : Veyne n’hésite pas à déboussoler le lecteur avec quelques paradoxes, ou le titiller avec quelques bons mots, pour l’amener insensiblement à son scepticisme prudent. Pour autant, je n’ai pas trop aimé le style général qui manque par trop de liant et saute, à mon goût, un peu trop du coq à l’âne. Il y a beaucoup d’allusions rapides qui, à mon avis, auraient mérité d’être un peu mieux explicitées, comme par exemple l’affaire des poulets noyés par ce romain qui voulait changer leur prédiction : il ne dit pas clairement que Plutarque et Tite-Live le critiquaient vertement. C’est comme s’il s’adressait à des personnes qui connaissent déjà bien le sujet. Dans le fond, il me semble qu’on se fera peut-être une idée plus claire des choses en lisant directement les anciens.
Le livre ne m’a pas transporté dans le sens où, en dehors de Pausanias qui se taille la part du lion, j’étais déjà familiarisé avec la plupart des éléments cités par Veyne, et que l’opinion que je peux avoir sur la question est assez proche de la sienne. Le livre ne manque pas de piquant : Veyne n’hésite pas à déboussoler le lecteur avec quelques paradoxes, ou le titiller avec quelques bons mots, pour l’amener insensiblement à son scepticisme prudent. Pour autant, je n’ai pas trop aimé le style général qui manque par trop de liant et saute, à mon goût, un peu trop du coq à l’âne. Il y a beaucoup d’allusions rapides qui, à mon avis, auraient mérité d’être un peu mieux explicitées, comme par exemple l’affaire des poulets noyés par ce romain qui voulait changer leur prédiction : il ne dit pas clairement que Plutarque et Tite-Live le critiquaient vertement. C’est comme s’il s’adressait à des personnes qui connaissent déjà bien le sujet. Dans le fond, il me semble qu’on se fera peut-être une idée plus claire des choses en lisant directement les anciens.
Read
June 11, 2023Pretty good, seems essentially Nietzschean in its thesis: truth as primarily multiple (multiple programs) as well as analogical. Also serves far better this thesis than Nietzsche's own On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense in its extended consideration of modalities of truth, as well as explorations of actual myth.
This said, I get the feeling Veyne is anchored by a trapping of language, and never seems to be able to simply say: "the question is wrongly put." This may have served him better. Instead there is a sense of Foucault-imitation.
Altogether, it's pretty good. I tend to agree with this sort of thing, but the rationalist core inside me always repels slightly at the complete reduction of truths to programs, epochs. I agree truth is historical, but not necessarily incommensurable between periods, a sort of effect this text seems to suggest.
This said, I get the feeling Veyne is anchored by a trapping of language, and never seems to be able to simply say: "the question is wrongly put." This may have served him better. Instead there is a sense of Foucault-imitation.
Altogether, it's pretty good. I tend to agree with this sort of thing, but the rationalist core inside me always repels slightly at the complete reduction of truths to programs, epochs. I agree truth is historical, but not necessarily incommensurable between periods, a sort of effect this text seems to suggest.
November 9, 2012
Hardcore postmodern French philosophy about a seemingly esoteric topic that almost no one you know is probably interested in but yet is something pretty important and fundamental because it impacts how we approach history, which is to say, how we approach everything. The general thrust is that truth is a bit murkier than most people are willing to admit (my emphasis):
Explication: Things either happened or didn't happen, exist or don't exist, but our perception of the reality of their "happened" nature, their existence, isn't chiseled in stone. In fact it's chipped away and molded anew until lots of people hold differing views on what happened and what exists (on "reality"). Each of these people are influenced by a program of force, an ideology, which is essentially a lens through which they view the world (and even this is a bit simplistic).
Think about Holocaust denial: people differ as to whether a certain thing happened at all circa 1933-1945. Its "material reality" is continually, up to the present day, questioned and deciphered and poked and prodded. To most of us, this seems incredible: "It happened!" we want to scream. "Haven't you seen the films? The pictures? The sudden disappearance of millions of people?" But to others "things aren't perfectly clear." For Veyne, then, this appears to be the reason why problems exist: different programs of force inform everyone's perception of reality and since we can't see (literally) everything the same way, we have differences and those differences lead to strife.
Which, in conclusion, is why a book that starts out talking about Greek historians ends up discussing Holocaust denial.
"It is clear that the existence or nonexistence of Theseus and gas chambers in one point in space and time has a material reality that owes nothing to our imagination. But this reality or irreality is perceived, misunderstood, or interpreted in one way or another according to the program in force. It, by itself, does not claim our attention; things are not perfectly clear. The same is true of the programs themselves. A good program does not naturally come into view. There is no truth of things, nor is it immanent."
Explication: Things either happened or didn't happen, exist or don't exist, but our perception of the reality of their "happened" nature, their existence, isn't chiseled in stone. In fact it's chipped away and molded anew until lots of people hold differing views on what happened and what exists (on "reality"). Each of these people are influenced by a program of force, an ideology, which is essentially a lens through which they view the world (and even this is a bit simplistic).
Think about Holocaust denial: people differ as to whether a certain thing happened at all circa 1933-1945. Its "material reality" is continually, up to the present day, questioned and deciphered and poked and prodded. To most of us, this seems incredible: "It happened!" we want to scream. "Haven't you seen the films? The pictures? The sudden disappearance of millions of people?" But to others "things aren't perfectly clear." For Veyne, then, this appears to be the reason why problems exist: different programs of force inform everyone's perception of reality and since we can't see (literally) everything the same way, we have differences and those differences lead to strife.
Which, in conclusion, is why a book that starts out talking about Greek historians ends up discussing Holocaust denial.
April 12, 2023
بحث عظيم عن عقل عظيم بترجمة رائعة
October 25, 2022
Le problème, c’est que j’étais vraiment intéressée par le sujet.
Mais voilà, c’est un essais, et donc j’ai du comprendre environ 20% de la totalité du propos. Ce qui est très peu.
J’ai l’impression qu’il dit exactement la même chose, à quelques nuances près ou en incluant une nouvelle perspective tout au long du livre. Il en vient parfois à s’éloigner énormément du sujet et rendre la question initiale plus compliquée que ce qu’elle est par sa réponse à rallonge et son vocabulaire de « mec qui peut pas s’exprimer simplement parce qu’il est différent et plus complexe que nous autres moldus ». Le titre est même pas adapté, la réflexion porte plus sur la pluralité et les analogie de vérités, ce que, du coup, j’ai compris et pas compris. Comme prévu, je n’ai aucune réponse à la question « Les Grecs ont-ils cru à leur mythes ? » à part « oui, mais aussi non, et en fait tu peux croire et pas croire, et y’a plusieurs vérités, et ça dépend de … » beaucoup de blabla que j’ai pas du tout compris et qui fait que je me tiens actuellement en Position Latérale de Sécurité face à mon contrôle d’aujourd’hui, 16h, qui porte bien entendu sur cet essais.
Merci Paul Veyne de ne savoir t’exprimer dans une langue accessible au commun des mortels.
Update : j’ai eu 18, merci Paul Veyne.
Mais voilà, c’est un essais, et donc j’ai du comprendre environ 20% de la totalité du propos. Ce qui est très peu.
J’ai l’impression qu’il dit exactement la même chose, à quelques nuances près ou en incluant une nouvelle perspective tout au long du livre. Il en vient parfois à s’éloigner énormément du sujet et rendre la question initiale plus compliquée que ce qu’elle est par sa réponse à rallonge et son vocabulaire de « mec qui peut pas s’exprimer simplement parce qu’il est différent et plus complexe que nous autres moldus ». Le titre est même pas adapté, la réflexion porte plus sur la pluralité et les analogie de vérités, ce que, du coup, j’ai compris et pas compris. Comme prévu, je n’ai aucune réponse à la question « Les Grecs ont-ils cru à leur mythes ? » à part « oui, mais aussi non, et en fait tu peux croire et pas croire, et y’a plusieurs vérités, et ça dépend de … » beaucoup de blabla que j’ai pas du tout compris et qui fait que je me tiens actuellement en Position Latérale de Sécurité face à mon contrôle d’aujourd’hui, 16h, qui porte bien entendu sur cet essais.
Merci Paul Veyne de ne savoir t’exprimer dans une langue accessible au commun des mortels.
Update : j’ai eu 18, merci Paul Veyne.
May 22, 2013
What a fascinating question! you think to yourself. It's a slim book, so I was expecting a delightful set of maybe somewhat loose reflections on the nature of belief and the uses of myth/history, bolstered by some close readings of a variety of sources. But no. Instead, you get a rambling monologue supported with no evidence whatsoever. It's the kind of work that people call "suggestive" and describe as brilliant even though it has no discernible argument. It drives me nuts.
That said, it does, almost in spite of itself, have some interesting thoughts. There is a lovely though somewhat incoherent metaphor of history as polygon with events filling up the space inside it, for instance. Veyne circles around some interesting questions about history, myth, and ideas of truth, and sometimes the specific ways he frames juxtaposes these questions is indeed interesting, even if his plan for answering them is just to kinda think about them. So in that sense, it's not a total loss, though I still didn't find it a particularly useful text to think through.
That said, it does, almost in spite of itself, have some interesting thoughts. There is a lovely though somewhat incoherent metaphor of history as polygon with events filling up the space inside it, for instance. Veyne circles around some interesting questions about history, myth, and ideas of truth, and sometimes the specific ways he frames juxtaposes these questions is indeed interesting, even if his plan for answering them is just to kinda think about them. So in that sense, it's not a total loss, though I still didn't find it a particularly useful text to think through.
October 5, 2016
كتاب أكثر من رائع يأخذك في رحلة تحليلية عميقة جداً، و يستعرض كل الآراء ذات الصلة بالموضوع - و هو دراسة تاريخية حول الاساطير و مدى صدقية اعتقاد أهل الأساطير بها و الدور التي كانت تؤديه تلك الأساطير اجتماعياً و ثقافياً و عامل مؤثر على أفراد المجتمع و كطريقة تعليمية جذابة للصغار و لترسيخ الميول السياسية لدى الكبار.
يناقش الكتاب تاريخ الأسطورة و تطورها و يقارنها بالواقعة الحقيقية و مكوناتها ، يستعرض آراء المحققين التاريخين القدماء حول الاسطورة مثل شيشورن الذي كان من زمن قديم يوجه انتقاداته الموضوعية للأساطير و ما يتصل بها من عالم.
يناقش الكتاب تاريخ الأسطورة و تطورها و يقارنها بالواقعة الحقيقية و مكوناتها ، يستعرض آراء المحققين التاريخين القدماء حول الاسطورة مثل شيشورن الذي كان من زمن قديم يوجه انتقاداته الموضوعية للأساطير و ما يتصل بها من عالم.
September 17, 2015
Kitapta Veyne, belki basit gibi görünen bir soru üzerinden dönemin "tarih yazımını" ve "hakikatin tarihselliği"ni tartışıyor.
Yazar dönemin metinlerine gördüğüm kadarıyla baya hakim. Ancak yazının organizasyonu beni yer yer bunalttı. Belki daha dikkatli okumalıydım bilemiyorum.
Kitap dipnotları açısından çok zengin. Paul Veyne isteseymiş herhalde, kitap şu anki ebadının bir buçuk-iki katı olabilecekmiş. Bu dipnot olayı çok hoşuma gitse de bu iş zaman zaman okumayı zorlaştırıyor, malumatfuruş bir hal alıyor.
Bu kitabın bana düşündüğürdüğü başka bir şey de: şu an şahikasına ulaşmış empirik ekonomi bilimiyle tarih yazımının teorik sorunlarının birbirine çok benzer oluşu. Her ne kadar ikinci kendini empirik bilimsel bir şekilde imlese de aslında onun da kendine ait bir bilgi toplanma alanları mevcut; yani onun da bilginin etrafında örgütlendiği nodelar/programlar/kanaat merkezleri var: bu birinde heredot, cicero bilmemkimken diğerinde yeni kurumcu ekol, enstürmantalistler (IV'ciler) vs.
Kitaptan tadımlık:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1...
Yazar dönemin metinlerine gördüğüm kadarıyla baya hakim. Ancak yazının organizasyonu beni yer yer bunalttı. Belki daha dikkatli okumalıydım bilemiyorum.
Kitap dipnotları açısından çok zengin. Paul Veyne isteseymiş herhalde, kitap şu anki ebadının bir buçuk-iki katı olabilecekmiş. Bu dipnot olayı çok hoşuma gitse de bu iş zaman zaman okumayı zorlaştırıyor, malumatfuruş bir hal alıyor.
Bu kitabın bana düşündüğürdüğü başka bir şey de: şu an şahikasına ulaşmış empirik ekonomi bilimiyle tarih yazımının teorik sorunlarının birbirine çok benzer oluşu. Her ne kadar ikinci kendini empirik bilimsel bir şekilde imlese de aslında onun da kendine ait bir bilgi toplanma alanları mevcut; yani onun da bilginin etrafında örgütlendiği nodelar/programlar/kanaat merkezleri var: bu birinde heredot, cicero bilmemkimken diğerinde yeni kurumcu ekol, enstürmantalistler (IV'ciler) vs.
Kitaptan tadımlık:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1...
July 7, 2009
A difficult book that I have re-read more than once, hoping to mine more of Veyne's meaning - I ultimately find this one frustrating. The problem doesn't appear to be in the translation from the French, but rather in Veyne's approach to his ideas.
June 10, 2013
While being an overall interesting and thought provoking read, I found this book to be extremely difficult, perhaps the most difficult book I have read. I recommend if you decide to take this one on that you have a dictionary, a lot of knowledge of Greek Mythology, or perhaps a Greek Mythology encyclopaedia but only if you have some knowledge of Greek mythology and if you are willing to look it up. The most useful chapters of this book are the first and final 2 chapters, while the in-between is filled with allusions to Greek Mythology, and perhaps a couple of detours. Overall I do not find this book exceptionally well written in regards to the many many allusions to the Greek mythology and somewhat esoteric terms. However, the conclusion, Greeks did believe in their myths but not the belief that people today have for religion or such beliefs, I found to be intriguing and insightful.
I would recommend this book for someone who is searching to find if Ancient civilizations believed in their myths, or perhaps how some ancient text were written and recorded. I would also recommend it if some one who wants to know the relativity of religious text to our lives today and of the people of the past.
I would recommend this book for someone who is searching to find if Ancient civilizations believed in their myths, or perhaps how some ancient text were written and recorded. I would also recommend it if some one who wants to know the relativity of religious text to our lives today and of the people of the past.
January 9, 2013
die egghead *kicks sand in authors face*
VEYNE: nooooo
VEYNE: nooooo
May 16, 2020
لطيف جدًا. يتطرق لآلية تأريخ الخرافات والأساطير في الماضي، وعن تغير مفاهيم الخيال وتدوينه عبر التاريخ
September 30, 2009
I guess enough time has passed -- literally as well as figuratively -- that we can now talk about something like a High Postmodernism. Veyne's investigation into how the ancient Greeks told, heard and lived with the (T/t)ruth their mythic stories at the same time that they congratulated themselves on their Sophism, the rich lineage of their polises and their lack of gullibility qualifies as such. Or, as Veyne notes: "History is also a novel containing deeds and proper names, and we have seen that, while reading, we believe that what read is true. Only afterward do we call it fiction."
August 5, 2024
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 1, 2020
الكتاب ده كان بيختارني إني ااقراه ولما قريته مخيبش أبدا أبدا ظني..
April 23, 2023
Answer: Yes and no, but answered in French, postmodern prose.
January 12, 2025
You can tell he had fun writing this. I'll oblige
June 3, 2025
To paraphrase Nietzsche, "every philosophy is an autobiography." Paul Veyne is no exception. As tempting as his thesis is, he doesn't do the hard work of "proving" it. He makes an unargued and illogical jump from his observations (many different approaches to "truth" exist throughout history, and have each been influenced by different things, sometimes using the same term to mean different things) to his thesis (thus there is no such thing as truth, since people have had different conceptions of truth). Normally, the more sly post-structuralists like Foucault and Derrida can get away with this rug pull by being charismatic (the former) or obtuse (the latter), but Veyne is neither. Ironically, he is too honest (truthful?) and straightforward, so that he doesn't hide what he means. When he says that "There is no truth of things, nor is it immanent" because "reality or irreality is perceived, misunderstood, or interrupted in one way or another, according to the program in force", he means that in a straightforward way. Ultimately his project is little more than a tautological autobiography. He claims the only way you can believe in certain myths is if you have certain starting assumptions for how truth and transmission and trust operate in regards to information, but he, in his postmodern relativism, can't say which "program" is better or worse than any other. This radical leveling does little other than point out, ultimately, that "if you start with different assumptions, you get different results." No duh, bud.
I say all of this with a sense of regret, since the first half or so was extremely thought-provoking; by contrast, the second half turned into something extremely thought-deadening. The first distinction Veyne made was between the premodern "Inquiry" approach (which starts with the assumption of good faith on the part of others) and the modern "Controversy" approach (which starts with an assumption of doubt and skepticism). The former operates on Ethos, trusting sources because of their name, rather than because of some method or other. The latter claims to operate on Logos, but I'm doubtful about that; what I like about the former is that it's honest and up front about its biases. It tells tall tales and lets you decide if you want to believe them. It assumes there is some kernel of truth even to the tallest of tales, such as names of people/places/etc. The latter makes pretenses to "objectivity" (whatever that is) on the basis of not trusting anything that dares to go outside of an arbitrary box, usually a naturalistic/materialistic worldview. Because nature (and apparently also history) abhors a vacuum, when we throw everything into doubt, new absurd theories are proposed to explain away everything that used to be accepted, mostly for novelty's sake. Thus, there is still a massive amount of "imagination" at work here (a term Veyne unhelpfully never defined in the book, though it was central to his thesis).
Ultimately, it's extremely hard to tell how much of what Veyne proposes is actually in the original texts/actually what the ancients "believed" (another word never properly defined or explicated), and how much is simply his own postmodern relativism being plastered over the top. I would like to propose a counter-thesis to his, which, for most of the book, reiterates over and over that the learned would use logos to purge myths of their legendary aspects to get the "true" kernel (euhemerism). For the premoderns, information was precious, rare, a thing to be treated with respect; for us postmoderns (and even for the moderns as well), information is mostly garbage, mostly noise. We have the opposite problem they had. For them, every bit of information was potentially earth-shatteringly important, so they attempted to preserve as much of it as possible. Even then, precious little has survived to the current day. For us, we have the problem of "curation," which is the exact opposite of theirs, "preservation." Thus it makes complete sense that, even if the legends which sprung up around a historical figure were dubious, they preserved them: partially in the possibility that they were some sort of true, partially in the allegorical mindset that many in the Church used (though it may not be literally historical, it has theological, spiritual, or moral significance), and partially because the Good, the True, and the Beautiful are all tied together. When I say the last of these, I am alluding to the fact that we can suspend our disbelief long enough while hearing a fictive story but still emerge the other side feeling as if there's something "true" about what we heard.
And that idea returns us to the etymological roots of "myth", which literally meant a "story;" the original meaning of the term was devoid of any values, positive or negative, truthful or fictive. It just was a narrative. Thus the ancients either had a deceptively simple view of "truth", or theirs was much more complicated than ours. Ours so often falls into the comfortable rut of scientific and verifiable truth, though that itself is contingent in ways that makes us uncomfortable. Ultimately, I don't think we can ever know with any certainty how they viewed truth. This brings up perhaps my biggest problem with the book, namely that the word "believe" is not interrogated properly. Though I appreciate Veynes's respectful inclusion of how the early Christian Church interacted with this problem, I am shocked that he didn't take into account the shift in the concept of "belief" that arose with Christianity, and which made possible the rise of science. Both the Jewish and the Pagan approaches to belief seem to me to be rooted in action: for example, leaving sacrifices on an altar to appease (the) God(s). This is why the early Christians were called "atheists:" they refused the outward "action," which one can do for tradition's sake (and for the sake of society, for unity, etc.) without "believing" that it's "true" in your "heart." If you asked a pagan Roman whether they thought their sacrifices to Caesar were necessary because he was really divine or really "needed" them, they probably would furrow their eyebrows at you. It's a different sort of religion, it's mixed in with patriotism and other things that early Christianity resolutely denied. Christianity also has become inextricably concerned with eternal salvation, rather than earthly life. Thus, Christian belief, though rooted ultimately in a historical event (the resurrection) also simultaneously transcends straightforward, earthly concerns/logic, and partakes in the paradoxical (such as the hypostatic union, which was there from the start of Christianity, even if the term wasn't). Thus when the early orthodox Christians said they believed in Christ, they meant something different than the pagans (or even the Jews); they meant something along the lines of "trust in" AND "belief that." This is precisely why the early Christian apologists and the early pagan critics of Christianity both seemed to be talking past each other: they had different concepts of belief, because their teleologies were totally different.
Like I said, I'm shocked that Veyne didn't address that at all, because it's particularly helpful in laying bare the reasons for our contemporary confusion; most contemporaries reading this book are either operating with the Christian or the Scientific notions of belief, whereas the pagans had a totally different "program," as Veyne would call it. However, I would like to partially agree in some ways with what Veyne is doing. For example, all history-writing is "myth-making" to some degree, depending how the facts are presented (which statistics/people/events are emphasized, which are excluded, etc.). There isn't a neutral way to present the discrete "facts" or "events" of history; BUT that doesn't mean we can't know anything "true" about the past. I think he goes way too far in this false leap of logic, as I already explained above. But I would go even further here, in another direction: Myth-making is a declaration of faith, i.e. a choosing of a frame/perspective, and thus a prioritization, a theology! To mythologize is to make comprehensible, i.e. to put into language, i.e. to believe in (the Christian?) God. What Nietzsche is attacking in essentially all his works is the link between truth, language, and God. Because of biases in thinking, metaphors in language, and paradoxes in theology, he finds it impossible to exist in that nexus, and demands a "transvaluation of all values." However, no matter which theology (i.e. which applied epistemology) you choose, you will be beholden to essentially the same thing. As Veyne might say, you can't operate outside of a program (of power? of priorities?) that helps guide how you see things. This of course has no bearing on whether or not objective reality does exist, it only complicates how or whether we can arrive at it.
The modern world is anxious precisely because it operates on false notions that never bothered the premoderns; the biggest of these was that we should all be experts in all facets of life, and short of that you should assume everything is a lie. Obviously, humans cannot live like that for very long. In our mental health epidemic we have proven the need for faith by our despair in its absence. Whether or not a particular faith is "true" or not (in the scientific sense) is to some degree irrelevant; faith (broadly defined) necessary for survival, both on the individual and societal levels. As an individual, you cannot know everything, whether how to do every practical job around the house, around technology, etc.; thus you must trust experts. This is what is so frustrating about Conspiracy Theorists: they falsely assume themselves experts, and mistrust real experts. I'm concerned by Veyne's relativistic approach because it precisely makes him and his ilk incapable of correcting wack jobs. There's a point where intellectual humility becomes cowardice, and Veyne flirts with that. It begs the very obvious question of "why even be anti-fascist" (or anti-ideology, any leftist stance at all)? These things are central to Veyne's (and thus Foucault's) "programs," but they're taken for granted like they're self-evident!
The conclusion we should come to in light of all this radical uncertainty is simply that we are not God. This doesn't disprove God, nor objective truth which may rest in Him, but it does exonerate us from needing to have all the answers. For example, yes, I would agree with Veyne and Nietzsche that causality is something linguistically/logically suspect. However, lived experience trumps this: you put the pot over the fire, and it boils. You don't need to know how or why something works for it to work. As I explained above, this false need for certainty is a uniquely modern invention, and it shouldn't even concern us. The thing I'm concerned about is how far this fallacy has infiltrated conservative theology since the modern age. For example, Veyne describes a certain "bad conscience" brought on by an extreme zeal; my first thought was Christian researchers who frantically seek the remains of Noah's Ark, paradoxically using science to disprove science (scientism?). If it was found, it also paradoxically would destroy faith, as you wouldn't need faith, it would be a proven fact.
In a realm near this, I was pleasantly surprised to see Veyne talk about how the early Christians often took a euhemerist view of the pagan myths but not the gospels. To me, there's a distinct difference between the two, which he didn't explicate, so I will: the gospels were written immediately after the events, not hundreds or thousands of years later. That means that people were still alive who remembered the events; that means that a plurality of witnesses is infinitely more trustworthy than a single poet inventing myths centuries later to deify their founders. The gospels do follow some of the hallmarks of traditional mythmaking, such as establishing the lineages, but that was more an inheritance from the OT than a NT invention (so the legitimacy or illegitimacy of that rests on the OT, and is ultimately a secondary issue). It's arguable that the gospel writers included the lineages because that would help build credence with the premodern audience. But the difference is that there is a massive difference between the NT and the Greek Myths, one which Veyne only roundaboutly acknowledges.
Perhaps the weakest point that Veyne repeated (and which I didn't see him establish convincingly) was this notion that the Greeks thought (I would assume following Plato?) that you can't speak of what doesn't exist, therefore if you're writing about it, it must exist (somewhere? somehow?), and thus must be some sort of "true." On p. 69 he mentions that "if speech is a mirror...can a mirror reflect what is not there?" I was baffled by this section because Veyne seems to conveniently explain away the possibility of any notion of lying in the Greek understanding, which, at least to my amateur ears, sounds patently absurd and logically impossible. Once again, I'm trying to figure out how much of this book is simply him plastering his own postmodern relativism over the top of what the Greeks "really" believed.
Similarly, I adamantly deny Veyne's thesis that language creates reality, rather than describing it. The irony is that it's usually smart people who say this, thus people who have coined their own terms in order to better describe reality, rather than being entirely beholden to the language we've inherited. His claim is not only naive and arrogant, but it's ignorant of the great treasure of language we've inherited, which we should be infinitely thankful for. Unfortunately, in our curation-mindset, we feel the weight too acutely and start to resent tradition. However, to solve this, one approach may be to strike a balance between the two. Sure, maybe we can never be as credulous as the premoderns, but we also shouldn't fall into the opposite ditch and doubt everything. Life lives somewhere on the hill between the two.
I say all of this with a sense of regret, since the first half or so was extremely thought-provoking; by contrast, the second half turned into something extremely thought-deadening. The first distinction Veyne made was between the premodern "Inquiry" approach (which starts with the assumption of good faith on the part of others) and the modern "Controversy" approach (which starts with an assumption of doubt and skepticism). The former operates on Ethos, trusting sources because of their name, rather than because of some method or other. The latter claims to operate on Logos, but I'm doubtful about that; what I like about the former is that it's honest and up front about its biases. It tells tall tales and lets you decide if you want to believe them. It assumes there is some kernel of truth even to the tallest of tales, such as names of people/places/etc. The latter makes pretenses to "objectivity" (whatever that is) on the basis of not trusting anything that dares to go outside of an arbitrary box, usually a naturalistic/materialistic worldview. Because nature (and apparently also history) abhors a vacuum, when we throw everything into doubt, new absurd theories are proposed to explain away everything that used to be accepted, mostly for novelty's sake. Thus, there is still a massive amount of "imagination" at work here (a term Veyne unhelpfully never defined in the book, though it was central to his thesis).
Ultimately, it's extremely hard to tell how much of what Veyne proposes is actually in the original texts/actually what the ancients "believed" (another word never properly defined or explicated), and how much is simply his own postmodern relativism being plastered over the top. I would like to propose a counter-thesis to his, which, for most of the book, reiterates over and over that the learned would use logos to purge myths of their legendary aspects to get the "true" kernel (euhemerism). For the premoderns, information was precious, rare, a thing to be treated with respect; for us postmoderns (and even for the moderns as well), information is mostly garbage, mostly noise. We have the opposite problem they had. For them, every bit of information was potentially earth-shatteringly important, so they attempted to preserve as much of it as possible. Even then, precious little has survived to the current day. For us, we have the problem of "curation," which is the exact opposite of theirs, "preservation." Thus it makes complete sense that, even if the legends which sprung up around a historical figure were dubious, they preserved them: partially in the possibility that they were some sort of true, partially in the allegorical mindset that many in the Church used (though it may not be literally historical, it has theological, spiritual, or moral significance), and partially because the Good, the True, and the Beautiful are all tied together. When I say the last of these, I am alluding to the fact that we can suspend our disbelief long enough while hearing a fictive story but still emerge the other side feeling as if there's something "true" about what we heard.
And that idea returns us to the etymological roots of "myth", which literally meant a "story;" the original meaning of the term was devoid of any values, positive or negative, truthful or fictive. It just was a narrative. Thus the ancients either had a deceptively simple view of "truth", or theirs was much more complicated than ours. Ours so often falls into the comfortable rut of scientific and verifiable truth, though that itself is contingent in ways that makes us uncomfortable. Ultimately, I don't think we can ever know with any certainty how they viewed truth. This brings up perhaps my biggest problem with the book, namely that the word "believe" is not interrogated properly. Though I appreciate Veynes's respectful inclusion of how the early Christian Church interacted with this problem, I am shocked that he didn't take into account the shift in the concept of "belief" that arose with Christianity, and which made possible the rise of science. Both the Jewish and the Pagan approaches to belief seem to me to be rooted in action: for example, leaving sacrifices on an altar to appease (the) God(s). This is why the early Christians were called "atheists:" they refused the outward "action," which one can do for tradition's sake (and for the sake of society, for unity, etc.) without "believing" that it's "true" in your "heart." If you asked a pagan Roman whether they thought their sacrifices to Caesar were necessary because he was really divine or really "needed" them, they probably would furrow their eyebrows at you. It's a different sort of religion, it's mixed in with patriotism and other things that early Christianity resolutely denied. Christianity also has become inextricably concerned with eternal salvation, rather than earthly life. Thus, Christian belief, though rooted ultimately in a historical event (the resurrection) also simultaneously transcends straightforward, earthly concerns/logic, and partakes in the paradoxical (such as the hypostatic union, which was there from the start of Christianity, even if the term wasn't). Thus when the early orthodox Christians said they believed in Christ, they meant something different than the pagans (or even the Jews); they meant something along the lines of "trust in" AND "belief that." This is precisely why the early Christian apologists and the early pagan critics of Christianity both seemed to be talking past each other: they had different concepts of belief, because their teleologies were totally different.
Like I said, I'm shocked that Veyne didn't address that at all, because it's particularly helpful in laying bare the reasons for our contemporary confusion; most contemporaries reading this book are either operating with the Christian or the Scientific notions of belief, whereas the pagans had a totally different "program," as Veyne would call it. However, I would like to partially agree in some ways with what Veyne is doing. For example, all history-writing is "myth-making" to some degree, depending how the facts are presented (which statistics/people/events are emphasized, which are excluded, etc.). There isn't a neutral way to present the discrete "facts" or "events" of history; BUT that doesn't mean we can't know anything "true" about the past. I think he goes way too far in this false leap of logic, as I already explained above. But I would go even further here, in another direction: Myth-making is a declaration of faith, i.e. a choosing of a frame/perspective, and thus a prioritization, a theology! To mythologize is to make comprehensible, i.e. to put into language, i.e. to believe in (the Christian?) God. What Nietzsche is attacking in essentially all his works is the link between truth, language, and God. Because of biases in thinking, metaphors in language, and paradoxes in theology, he finds it impossible to exist in that nexus, and demands a "transvaluation of all values." However, no matter which theology (i.e. which applied epistemology) you choose, you will be beholden to essentially the same thing. As Veyne might say, you can't operate outside of a program (of power? of priorities?) that helps guide how you see things. This of course has no bearing on whether or not objective reality does exist, it only complicates how or whether we can arrive at it.
The modern world is anxious precisely because it operates on false notions that never bothered the premoderns; the biggest of these was that we should all be experts in all facets of life, and short of that you should assume everything is a lie. Obviously, humans cannot live like that for very long. In our mental health epidemic we have proven the need for faith by our despair in its absence. Whether or not a particular faith is "true" or not (in the scientific sense) is to some degree irrelevant; faith (broadly defined) necessary for survival, both on the individual and societal levels. As an individual, you cannot know everything, whether how to do every practical job around the house, around technology, etc.; thus you must trust experts. This is what is so frustrating about Conspiracy Theorists: they falsely assume themselves experts, and mistrust real experts. I'm concerned by Veyne's relativistic approach because it precisely makes him and his ilk incapable of correcting wack jobs. There's a point where intellectual humility becomes cowardice, and Veyne flirts with that. It begs the very obvious question of "why even be anti-fascist" (or anti-ideology, any leftist stance at all)? These things are central to Veyne's (and thus Foucault's) "programs," but they're taken for granted like they're self-evident!
The conclusion we should come to in light of all this radical uncertainty is simply that we are not God. This doesn't disprove God, nor objective truth which may rest in Him, but it does exonerate us from needing to have all the answers. For example, yes, I would agree with Veyne and Nietzsche that causality is something linguistically/logically suspect. However, lived experience trumps this: you put the pot over the fire, and it boils. You don't need to know how or why something works for it to work. As I explained above, this false need for certainty is a uniquely modern invention, and it shouldn't even concern us. The thing I'm concerned about is how far this fallacy has infiltrated conservative theology since the modern age. For example, Veyne describes a certain "bad conscience" brought on by an extreme zeal; my first thought was Christian researchers who frantically seek the remains of Noah's Ark, paradoxically using science to disprove science (scientism?). If it was found, it also paradoxically would destroy faith, as you wouldn't need faith, it would be a proven fact.
In a realm near this, I was pleasantly surprised to see Veyne talk about how the early Christians often took a euhemerist view of the pagan myths but not the gospels. To me, there's a distinct difference between the two, which he didn't explicate, so I will: the gospels were written immediately after the events, not hundreds or thousands of years later. That means that people were still alive who remembered the events; that means that a plurality of witnesses is infinitely more trustworthy than a single poet inventing myths centuries later to deify their founders. The gospels do follow some of the hallmarks of traditional mythmaking, such as establishing the lineages, but that was more an inheritance from the OT than a NT invention (so the legitimacy or illegitimacy of that rests on the OT, and is ultimately a secondary issue). It's arguable that the gospel writers included the lineages because that would help build credence with the premodern audience. But the difference is that there is a massive difference between the NT and the Greek Myths, one which Veyne only roundaboutly acknowledges.
Perhaps the weakest point that Veyne repeated (and which I didn't see him establish convincingly) was this notion that the Greeks thought (I would assume following Plato?) that you can't speak of what doesn't exist, therefore if you're writing about it, it must exist (somewhere? somehow?), and thus must be some sort of "true." On p. 69 he mentions that "if speech is a mirror...can a mirror reflect what is not there?" I was baffled by this section because Veyne seems to conveniently explain away the possibility of any notion of lying in the Greek understanding, which, at least to my amateur ears, sounds patently absurd and logically impossible. Once again, I'm trying to figure out how much of this book is simply him plastering his own postmodern relativism over the top of what the Greeks "really" believed.
Similarly, I adamantly deny Veyne's thesis that language creates reality, rather than describing it. The irony is that it's usually smart people who say this, thus people who have coined their own terms in order to better describe reality, rather than being entirely beholden to the language we've inherited. His claim is not only naive and arrogant, but it's ignorant of the great treasure of language we've inherited, which we should be infinitely thankful for. Unfortunately, in our curation-mindset, we feel the weight too acutely and start to resent tradition. However, to solve this, one approach may be to strike a balance between the two. Sure, maybe we can never be as credulous as the premoderns, but we also shouldn't fall into the opposite ditch and doubt everything. Life lives somewhere on the hill between the two.
February 11, 2021
Desde que eu era criança sempre fui fascinado pela mitologia, principalmente a grega. Tinha uma coleção de livros que contavam diversas histórias mitológicas e simplesmente adorava. Ler este livro "Os gregos acreditavam nos seus mitos?", de Paul Veyne é, de alguma forma, retornar ao encontro daquela fascinação infantil pelos mitos, mas com uma roupagem e uma análise embasada e adulta. O livro traz uma bordagem de um historiador encarando os mitos como verdade, crença, crença na verdade e outros sentidos que podem ocorrer ao observar as histórias dos mitos. É um livro gostoso de ler, mesmo com muitas citações a autores gregos da Antiguidade, quando você vê já leu o livro todo de tão interessante e fluido que é.
April 1, 2021
Je savais que j’aimais Paul Veyne, je sais maintenant que je regretterai son départ. Un immense auteur doublé d’un historien extrêmement doué. Il nous parle de mythes dans cet ouvrage, mais si je n’avais pas pu le lire de son vivant, j’aurais cru qu’il était lui aussi un mythe, trop parfait pour être vrai.
October 25, 2022
j'ai toujours pas la réponse du coup
Read
September 8, 2023Came for classical philology,
Stayed for philosophy.
Slept*
Stayed for philosophy.
Slept*
June 12, 2025
Le fond est très intéressant. Par contre, la forme, la manière dont le livre est écrit c’est tellement flou que je me suis perdue. La cohérence est souvent difficile à trouver.
February 12, 2020
إنَّ مسألة كيف تتم كتابة التاريخ، شغلت اهتمام المؤرّخ الفرنسي "بول فاين"، المعترف به عالمياً كمرجعية في مجال "تاريخ روما القديمة". وهذه المسألة قد شرحها بكثيرِ اسهابٍ في كتاب له، معنون بـ"Comment on écrit l'histoire?" /"كيف يُكتب التاريخ؟"، خلاله قدم بعض المفاهيم؛ منها ما يوضح دور المؤرّخين في التأريخ، بأنهم إنما: "يروون أحداثًا حقيقية من فعل البشر، بالتالي فالتاريخ هو رواية للحقيقة." وبه شرع في كتابة كتابه "هل اعتقد الإغريق بأساطيرهم؟"، والذي يعد رحلة في التأمل العكسي؛ وهو تأمل عميق، للمسيرة التي قطعتها البشرية، في إيمانها وتكوين معتقداتها، وفي مسألة الآلهة وتعددها؛ مستشهدًا بموقف المسيحيين منها، وفي بحث البشرية عن الحقيقة؛ وكيف أنه كان من طبيعة تلك الحقيقة أ��ا تظل ثابتة أبدًا. وتحدث أيضًا عن الأسطورة وارتباطها؛ بالسياسة، والفلسفة.
يعلل بول فاين طريقة عرضه؛ المتمثلة في هذا التأمل العكسي، إلى أنَّ ذلك "يتيح لنا أن ننطلق من الجملة الآتية (الحقيقة؛ هي أن الحقيقة عرضة للتغيير)، دون أن نقع في التناقض" ؛ فنتوصل من خلال ذلك إلى كون الحقائق شيء متكاثر متعدد؛ لا شيء ينقص من تماثلها وتعادلها في الصدق؛ مادامت تحرك معتنقيها بذات القوة. فـ"تعدد كيفيّات الاعتقاد هو، في الواقع، تعدد في مقاييس الحقيقة؛ ما يعني أن صدقية الاعتقاد لا تقاس بحقيقة موضوعه" ؛ والسبب في ذلك، يكمن في أننا نحن من يصنع حقائقنا ومعتقداتنا لا الواقع؛ لأنّ هذا الأخير ناتج عن الخيال البشري المكوّن.
من جهة أخرى، يرى بول فاين أن قولنا بعدم وجود أي حقيقة "ليس أكثر تناقضًا وتعطيلًا للفكر من القول بوجود حقيقة علمية تبقى أبدًا مؤقتة، ومصيرها التشوه الحتميّ. ولكن ينبغي أن نحاذر الخلط بين العلم ومدرَسيته؛ فليس من شأن العلم أن يهتدي إلى حقائق قابلة للترييض أو التعقيد، وإنما أن يكتشف أمورًا غير معلومة تحتمل التفسير بألف طريقة"؛ مما يقودنا دائمًا إلى حقائق آخرى.
وعن التساؤل حول ماهية الخيال المكوّن، يجيب بأنَّ "الخيال الذي نحن في صدده ليس تلك الملكة المعروفة نفسيًا وتاريخيًا بهذا الاسم، وإنما المقصود منها أنّ كل عصر يفكّر ويتصرّف ضمن أُطُرٍ كيفيّة جامدة." ومن يقرأ الكتاب، سيجد أن بول فاين إنما سعى لإثبات أنّ الحقيقة ليست قاصرة على أحد، بل إنَّ لكل منا أن يسعى إليها، وأنها أيضًا ليست شيئًا ثابتًا، دائمًا.
فإن كانت البرامج التي تسعى للبحث عن الحقيقة، قد تباينت في العصر نفسه، حتى أنه لربما تناقضت من نشاط إلى آخر، إلا أنَّ كثيرًا ما ظلت هناك تناقضات مجهولة، لم نعرفها بعد، والسبب في ذلك؛ هو أننا لا نرى ما هو خارج تفكيرنا، عندما نكون محبوسين داخل أحد القماقم الفكرية؛ التي أنتجتها حالة التوزيع الاجتماعي للمعرفة؛ بظهور الأشخاص الأخصائيين، والذين بدورهم ألزموا المجتمع بالتماسك المنطقي، مما يصم من يتجاوزه بـ"المفكر الجاهل"! .. ومن خلال هذا، رأى أنَّ العلاقة بين الحقائق وانتشارها، إنما هي عبارة عن موازين قوى، مصيرها صائر إلى التغير أبدًا.
يعلل بول فاين طريقة عرضه؛ المتمثلة في هذا التأمل العكسي، إلى أنَّ ذلك "يتيح لنا أن ننطلق من الجملة الآتية (الحقيقة؛ هي أن الحقيقة عرضة للتغيير)، دون أن نقع في التناقض" ؛ فنتوصل من خلال ذلك إلى كون الحقائق شيء متكاثر متعدد؛ لا شيء ينقص من تماثلها وتعادلها في الصدق؛ مادامت تحرك معتنقيها بذات القوة. فـ"تعدد كيفيّات الاعتقاد هو، في الواقع، تعدد في مقاييس الحقيقة؛ ما يعني أن صدقية الاعتقاد لا تقاس بحقيقة موضوعه" ؛ والسبب في ذلك، يكمن في أننا نحن من يصنع حقائقنا ومعتقداتنا لا الواقع؛ لأنّ هذا الأخير ناتج عن الخيال البشري المكوّن.
من جهة أخرى، يرى بول فاين أن قولنا بعدم وجود أي حقيقة "ليس أكثر تناقضًا وتعطيلًا للفكر من القول بوجود حقيقة علمية تبقى أبدًا مؤقتة، ومصيرها التشوه الحتميّ. ولكن ينبغي أن نحاذر الخلط بين العلم ومدرَسيته؛ فليس من شأن العلم أن يهتدي إلى حقائق قابلة للترييض أو التعقيد، وإنما أن يكتشف أمورًا غير معلومة تحتمل التفسير بألف طريقة"؛ مما يقودنا دائمًا إلى حقائق آخرى.
وعن التساؤل حول ماهية الخيال المكوّن، يجيب بأنَّ "الخيال الذي نحن في صدده ليس تلك الملكة المعروفة نفسيًا وتاريخيًا بهذا الاسم، وإنما المقصود منها أنّ كل عصر يفكّر ويتصرّف ضمن أُطُرٍ كيفيّة جامدة." ومن يقرأ الكتاب، سيجد أن بول فاين إنما سعى لإثبات أنّ الحقيقة ليست قاصرة على أحد، بل إنَّ لكل منا أن يسعى إليها، وأنها أيضًا ليست شيئًا ثابتًا، دائمًا.
فإن كانت البرامج التي تسعى للبحث عن الحقيقة، قد تباينت في العصر نفسه، حتى أنه لربما تناقضت من نشاط إلى آخر، إلا أنَّ كثيرًا ما ظلت هناك تناقضات مجهولة، لم نعرفها بعد، والسبب في ذلك؛ هو أننا لا نرى ما هو خارج تفكيرنا، عندما نكون محبوسين داخل أحد القماقم الفكرية؛ التي أنتجتها حالة التوزيع الاجتماعي للمعرفة؛ بظهور الأشخاص الأخصائيين، والذين بدورهم ألزموا المجتمع بالتماسك المنطقي، مما يصم من يتجاوزه بـ"المفكر الجاهل"! .. ومن خلال هذا، رأى أنَّ العلاقة بين الحقائق وانتشارها، إنما هي عبارة عن موازين قوى، مصيرها صائر إلى التغير أبدًا.
May 9, 2019
I was really excited to read this book, as I am interested in the epistemology or, as Veyne calls it, the "modalities of belief" of ancient peoples. Unfortunately, reading the book and having a background in logic and philosophy is a bit painful. As other reviewers have mentioned, the writing is not well-organized and the arguments are all over the place (even the historical "evidence" is all over the place). But even as his arguments become clear, they are deeply afflicted by contradiction. The last chapter definitively lays out his idea that culture is just a collection of flimsily constructed castles of "truth," with no reason, no consistency, and here's the postmodern punch- no truth. I would love to take this idea seriously, but true to postmodern form, he makes no clear arguments because destroying truth presupposes the loss of logic too (conveniently for a belief system that is built on the logical contradiction that the only truth is that there is no truth). I did glean some interesting thoughts from the essay, so I don't discount his work completely, but it is pretty astounding to read an academic who is so lazily smug in his unsophisticated thesis. A note to postmodern "academics": make an attempt to redefine truth, but if you claim that it's nonexistent, then you destroy your own foundation.
December 10, 2019
Kitap, hakikat kavramını incelemektedir. Antik Yunan'ın sınırlarında kalmayıp, teorinin bütün kapılarını açarak ve metaforun bütün olanaklarından yararlanarak görüşlerini sunar.
Hakikat, ne doğru ne yanlıştır.
'Modern' bilimsel yöntemle, Antik Yunan yazarlarının yöntemi arasındaki farklar derinden incelenir. Antik Yunan'da atıf ve dipnota neden gerek duyulmazken, 'modern' anlayışta atıf ve dipnot neden önemlidir? İlk atıf ve dipnot verenler neden teolog ve hukukçulardır?
Antik Yunan tarih anlayışı neydi ve hangi yöntemleri kullanırlardı? Neyi amaçlamaktaydılar?
Antik Yunan düşünürlerinin(özellikle filozof ve tarihçilerin) mit karşısındaki tutumu neydi? Mitin gerçek mi yoksa kurgu mu olduğunu anlamak için hangi yöntemlere başvurmuşlardı ve hangi sonuçlara varmışlardı?
Antik Yunan'dan yola çıkarak, hakikat, bilim, mit ve tarih üzerine düşünmenizi sağlayacak bir eser...
Hakikat, ne doğru ne yanlıştır.
'Modern' bilimsel yöntemle, Antik Yunan yazarlarının yöntemi arasındaki farklar derinden incelenir. Antik Yunan'da atıf ve dipnota neden gerek duyulmazken, 'modern' anlayışta atıf ve dipnot neden önemlidir? İlk atıf ve dipnot verenler neden teolog ve hukukçulardır?
Antik Yunan tarih anlayışı neydi ve hangi yöntemleri kullanırlardı? Neyi amaçlamaktaydılar?
Antik Yunan düşünürlerinin(özellikle filozof ve tarihçilerin) mit karşısındaki tutumu neydi? Mitin gerçek mi yoksa kurgu mu olduğunu anlamak için hangi yöntemlere başvurmuşlardı ve hangi sonuçlara varmışlardı?
Antik Yunan'dan yola çıkarak, hakikat, bilim, mit ve tarih üzerine düşünmenizi sağlayacak bir eser...
January 19, 2020
Just as unsure of the answer to the question in the title as I was when I started reading it. Not to mention do people that are translating books from French just choose the most ridiculously obscure English words for their translations.
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