Battle of the books, ancients vs moderns, its all happening again. Neo-classical bap, pining for integration of antiquity, the superior holistic man, bap reading Winckelmann, a closet enlightener? Spooky if true
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Its not about ‘picking an era’ this is stupid idea, not how you go about things. One must learn all of history, and enlightement should be studied not as arbitrary affectation, but to understand how modernity was created and what its flaws/errors are
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also there in an inner drive in philosophy: to study Enlightenment takes you back to Bacon and Descartes, to Machiavelli and Erasmus, to Polybius and Seneca
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All knowledge is connected, even BAP’s views here on antiquity inescapably shaped by enlightenment.
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no this is false!
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unmediated view of antiquity is hard just reading bare text with no study of meaning (of words, of puzzles, of logic) means kwa kid will spatter ancients with zogpoison from his own brain but if you study meaning, who is your teacher?
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Even post-modernism really begins in struggle with the interpretative and philological challenges of getting at authentic core of antique texts. Getting at the ‘real antiquity’ is noble aim, but much easier said than done.
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Replying to @KANTBOT20K @QuasLacrimas and
Hard to know what it means to engage with antiquity apart from Montesquieu or Gibbon. The very idea of history itself is modern creation of enlightenment that affects and orients our perspective whether we admit it or like it
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There are two complementary threads: one is how to read and understand the texts, the other is their ultimate meaning and relevance
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Replying to @QuasLacrimas @KANTBOT20K and
To some extent you can read and evaluate using 20th c scholarship, ignore Enlightenment (but Voltaire, etc still very important for stupid views - like most ancient texts spurious or medieval fakes - and as source of still-popular misconceptions)
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but advantages of Enl interp of ancients is, where material is handled well, it is beautifully written and made very engaging more ppl have gotten gist of Livy, Plutarch from Rousseau than recent critical historians of Rome
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Replying to @QuasLacrimas @KANTBOT20K and
Enl authors also v learned, embrace wider range of sources - they fought vicious battles over ancient writers literally no one reads today... 21st century gives skewed view of *which works* are important
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Replying to @QuasLacrimas @KANTBOT20K and
idea of a “canon” is - i say often - petty bourgeois straitjacket was an attempt to portray understanding of antiquity as tho intelligible to ppl who don’t like to read too much... just 50 authors and you’re done! oh that’s too much? okay can you do 12
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