The Purpose of AE (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)

[Pete Jones]

Page 28, the conversation between St Augustine and Aethelbert is laugh-out-loud funny. I'm at a bar trying to watch the NBA Finals but I keep chuckling during the commercials. All serious ideas should be written this way

[Mick Harper]

It's a technique I often use but I have never seen anyone else use. The reason being that, far from being a sugared pill, the average reader would feel insultedly patronised. The human brain cannot mesh high purpose with low humour.

This is a shame because, reading it again, it says it all, it says it concisely and it says it unanswerably. Nor was there any need for (intellectual) creativity, it's all in Wiki. And it destroys a good chunk of 'English' history.

Here's an example from Forgeries itself. On page 27:
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Aethelberht: Welcome, Augustine, what can I do for you?

Augustine: Would you like to convert to Christianity?

Aethelberht: I'm open to offers. The wife's a Christian, you know. Well, of course you would know, you must have stayed with her father, Charibert King of the Franks, on your way through.

Augustine: Yes indeed, he sends his regards. If you do convert, you'll be saved from eternal damnation in the pits of hell.

Aethelberht: That's always useful but I was thinking of something more here and now.

Augustine: I can bestow the inestimable benefits of literacy upon your court.

Aethelberht: That's very kind of you but to be honest we don't have much call for literacy in the general way of things, being a warrior society and so forth. But insofar as we do – diplomatic correspondence with the Mercians, reminders to Charibert about the dowry and whatnot – I've got a roomful of scribes already doing it.

Augustine: Oh, you have...

Aethelberht: We're not complete barbarians round here. Well, yes, I suppose technically speaking we are, but Kent spent four hundred years in the Roman Empire so we've got a tradition of literacy. Not, I grant, a flourishing tradition but enough to be getting along with. Sorry old chap ... if there's nothing else...

Augustine: What about writing in Anglo-Saxon?

Aethelberht: Blimey, there's a thought. But I can't see the point. Even if we were writing to other Anglo-Saxons their scribes wouldn't be able to read it, would they? They only read Latin. And as for writing to the Franks or your man in Rome, even if they could read it, it would be gibberish seeing as they don't speak Anglo-Saxon.

Augustine: True ... mmm ... what about a law code in Anglo-Saxon?

Aethelberht: Ah now, that could be a runner. I can see the advantages in everybody knowing what crimes they mustn't commit. Preferably before they commit them. Go on then, tell me what it involves.

Augustine: Well, Anglo-Saxon isn't really compatible with the Latin alphabet so I might have to mess around some. Shouldn't be a problem but even so since no alphabet has more than a couple of dozen symbols I will have to re-invent and simplify your incredibly complex natural language into something more phonetic. You'll kind of recognise the new one but basically you'll have to learn it just like I had to learn Latin even though I'm a Tuscan-speaker. Which reminds me, I'll have to learn Anglo-Saxon in order to do any of this. No, wait, I can get a team of your scribes on the job since they already speak Anglo-Saxon and they will be able to understand my Latin instructions. Of course we will all have to learn philological techniques that haven't been employed since my own forefathers did it in central Italy a thousand years ago and unfortunately they didn't leave a blueprint. Never mind, we can learn on the job. Once we've finished we shall have to teach all your other scribes this new modified form of Anglo-Saxon in order for them to learn to write it but since they've already spent several years doing all this in the case of Latin they won't begrudge a few more years. After that it's all downhill.

Aethelberht: I suppose we might have to teach the crims how to read so they can read the law code but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. How long will all this take? We're only a rude military caste when all's said and done. Even the scribes. Especially the scribes if you ask me. A ballpark figure will do.

Augustine: These massive cultural shifts always take longer than you think but what is it now ... 597 ... so we're probably looking at the late 590's ... early seventh century tops.

[Pete Jones]

[Pete Jones]

What I Thought AE Was....

Still from Forgeries:

[Pete Jones]

So, I thought it required a two-step: Having a changeable mind and then directing it to the problems in an intellectual field.

The second part is AE, but the first part is the great mystery. I know why I'm willing to entertain that orthodoxy is wrong, but I think it's purely biographical (i.e., doesn't follow some pattern). But other than having some specific biography that makes some open, some not, I don't see how "changeable mind" can be taught. It seems like an accident, at least in my case.

I'd be curious about why other think they are willing to read about Hyberboreans or Reindeer Herders or Fake Names or Chronology Revision or the rest of it. Presumably, we all have family and friends with extremely similar biographies who never bother with topics like these. Or with questioning much of anything.

[Mick Harper]

[Pete Jones]

[Mick Harper]

Here is a perfect illustration of AE in action

[Mick Harper]

But back to AE allegedly in action. The idea of documents being forged for their content, not for their value as artefacts, is very well known to historians. They are always reminding us that, say, The Donation of Constantine is a papal fake. It's just they never do so when they are relying on the document for the writing of history.
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Page Eight of Forgeries (fourth page of text)

If I were one of Enid’s relatives (not Jimmy) I would be inclined to give that manuscript – for that is what hand-written documents are called – a thorough, not to say forensic, examination. The Gospels of St Augustine raises red flags under both the rule and the exception.

It is certainly one of the world’s most remarkable manuscripts. Not just remarkable, it is remarkably remarkable. Actually it is remarkably remarkably remarkable because, if genuine, the Gospels of St Augustine has no less than three completely different claims to fame:

1. It was the personal possession of the individual who introduced Christianity into England
2. It is the oldest non-archaeological artefact in England
3. It is the earliest manuscript anywhere in the world containing a written form of what would eventually become the world language, English.

And yet, amidst all the fanfare, it has its Enid moments. Nestled between the Prologue and St Mark's Gospel there is just enough space for some future scribe to come along and copy in some distinctly unBiblical material. It is a will bequeathing a substantial property to the then current owners of the Gospels, St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury.

Another tip: if Enid’s will had been lodged with her local solicitor and the will said she'd left a substantial property to that solicitor, the relatives (including Jimmy) might wish to have a word with the Law Society.

This is what the scribe wrote on that blank page in the Gospels of St Augustine

[Mick Harper]

Academic history has one very strict rule: you are not allowed to claim something happened without being able to produce a contemporaneous record of it. This transformed traditional histories which were based on... well, wishful thinking mostly.

It is a rule observed with great punctiliousness when there is a full historical record. Some leeway is allowed when the historical record is patchy. And it's back to wishful thinking when there is no record at all. Though the academics don't tip the punters the wink. Or each other a lot of the time, as we shall see...
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Page Nine of Forgeries

of its existence for those four hundred years. This is usually a big no-no when authenticating rare objects. Dr de Hamel was himself for many years a Sotheby’s appraiser but he probably wasn't on duty when this memorable encounter occurred

Bloke with parcel: I’ve got this Rembrandt here. What do you reckon it's worth?
Sotheby expert: What is its provenance?
Bloke: The first four hundred years are decidedly murky but it has been securely in my possession ever since I found it in a skip.
Sotheby expert: Well, it could be extremely valuable, Sir, we're going to have to take very good care of it. Gwendoline, would you ask security to come to the front desk.

Why then does Dr de Hamel – and the entirety of scholarly opinion – believe in the authenticity of the Gospels of St Augustine? They advance three lines of evidence.

The first is the Venerable Bede who mentions that Pope Gregory sent a parcel of books to Canterbury in 601 to assist in the proselytising mission Augustine was heading up. Bede does not mention a gospel book but in any event this appears to contradict the notion of it being brought here by St Augustine. This is finessed in orthodox accounts

[Mick Harper]

It was a definite tactical error going off on this technical rant rather than pushing on with the main story. But anyway the rant continues for a bit.
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Page 10 of Forgeries

invariably a further example of something already and copiously established. They will frequently contain straightforward, if subliminally mendacious, tricks of the trade of the 'either-or' type. Believe me, when academics really have got something fresh and important to say they switch into very, very clear English.

Academese is always understated, advancing arguments in an endearingly tentative way that insists to the reader the writer is doing his best to show a lack of dogmatism, that the hypothesis being presented is somehow provisional and not to be understood as the last word on the subject, just the best that can be managed given 'what is known' and will soon no doubt be augmented, even replaced, by a better understanding of the situation at sometime in the future.

Modesty is a form of lying. In effect, the standard academic paper is not the last word, it is not the first word, it is the only word -- and the writer has to provide a citation to that effect. His paper would be rejected were he saying something genuinely original because, by definition, there can be no citation for it.

All this is disguised by academese. Were there ever a moratorium on academese, and all scholarly papers were obliged to be submitted in plain English, the vast majority would be rejected by peer reviewers on grounds of fatuity alone.

The mendacity might show up too. But since this applies to the peer reviewers themselves when they come to write their own scholarly papers and peer-reviewed scholarly papers are the chief criterion for academic advancement, it ain't never gonna happen. If academese goes, the academics will go too. Shame. Nice people for the most part.

Let us see whether the 'either-or technique' will work for or against the Augustinian scholars. I'll throw in a bit of mock-algebra to provide some systems analysis in place of academese

• x (the Gospels of St Augustine being at Canterbury c 600 AD) is important, it physically exists, it can be inspected and scientifically dated at any time

• y and z (Gregory's books) are not important, they do not physically exist

• x has no historical evidence, y and z do have historical evidence (Bede mentions them)

• x, y and z can be placed together using the either/or technique (“they were all in Canterbury together c 600 AD”)

• x now has “no reason to doubt” status and further examination is neither necessary nor desirable.

This is not only useful for establishing the bona fides of something important, it has useful knock-on effects for things that are even more important

• Though y and z are unimportant, Bede is now strengthened as a source for important matters about which he is either a direct witness or an indirect but reliable reporter i.e. England 500 - 700 AD

[Mick Harper]

First you weave it tight, then you unravel it, and you finish not with a pile of wool but nothing at all.
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Page Eleven of Forgeries

• Bede is the historical source for a, b, c ... n during that period, so there is definitely “no reason to doubt” a, b, c ... n, a complete skein of “no reason to doubt” facts about English history 500 - 700

• The skein can be woven into a properly sourced and satisfying narrative history for England 500 - 700

• England and its language 'English' was established in the period 500 - 700 so the English and English-speakers now have a satisfying account of their own and their language's origins (something everyone devoutly wishes for, it's part of the human condition).

This is all very win-win and can last – it has lasted – for centuries but there is still that itsy-bitsy loosey-loosey thread, just about visible, sticking out of the woolly jumper. Technically, if you really wanted to nit-pick, there is still no historical evidence for x. What if somebody starts gently tugging at the loose thread and establishes x did not in fact happen?

At first nothing changes – x may be important in itself but its disappearance does not change history in any way. Bede, for example, never even mentioned it so his status, if anything, is enhanced. To be perfectly honest, the removal of x could be a good thing – it just goes to show how historians are fully on the ball, quite unafraid to slaughter the most sacred of cows in their flinty-eyed pursuit of truth. Ah, but

• x is now discarded

• y and z have always been bracketed with x – it’s in all the textbooks – so y and z are a little bit discredited.

• Bede, responsible for y and z, may be a little bit discredited too, there might even be reason to doubt a, b, c ... n

• The entire woolly jumper is in some danger of getting unravelled, a woolly jumper that has been keeping everybody warm for centuries

• There are dark mutterings about those who might have been pulling the wool over everybody's eyes all this time but then people start contemplating the biting winds of not having a satisfactory and satisfying history

• Given the choice between a doubtful history and staring into a history-less abyss, people go for the former (it's part of the human condition), the loose thread gets tucked back in one way or another

• Still and all, it's an entertaining spectacle while it lasts. Watch and learn, watch and learn.

* * *

The next strand of evidence put forward for the authenticity of the Gospels of St Augustine is

[Mick Harper]

I didn't want to show my hand too early but this is what the book is all about. At one level.
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Page Twelve of Forgeries

‘Insular’ script is so-called because it is the characteristic style of the insular British Isles as opposed to how they do these things sur le continent

[Wile E. Coyote]

If you look hypothetically at how these would be produced, you might very well conclude that the difficulty of producing such a script would be way higher, and cost more, than the building of, say, any 6th to 8th century monastery it was actually located (rather insecurely) in (that is, if you think all this happened). Book of Kells after all took 75 years to produce according to some.

To get the timescales and costs down, they would need to be producing these scripts on a mass factory type of scale. So you need to envisage a large monastery with fully stocked library and a busy scriptorium, full of monks and lay people, well organised and supplied and run on factory type principles........

It's disappointing (Wiley wears Union Jack underpants) but realistically we, or the Irish, did not have the basics in buildings, organisation, to achieve this until well after the Norman Conquest.

[Mick Harper]