Rule #1 of Historical Reasoning

[Paul E.]

Peter

Since the definition of 'primary source' doesn't include anything about being the minimum standard necessary to be usable as evidence, it's only logical that things other than primary sources (including some of those 'secondary sources' that we keep hearing about) could possibly be usable as evidence.

That's the Laplacean or Bayesian view. Any obervation (and only an observation, which is also an issue in this thread) can be used as evidence, provided that the analyst estimates that it bears upon the uncertainty.

Paul E. painted the picture well, without referring to Bayes:

I don't think many historians (or any?) would be dogmatic that they are "absolutely necessary," would they? You use what is usable as you see it.

This perspective rebuts an older view, championed by Hume, that there are different kinds of relevant obervations, some of which can be used as evidence and others which supposedly cannot. Hume was especially concerned about oral testimony, which has many of the undesirable features associated with secondary evidence (easily invented, often including interpretation and traditional elements, etc.).

This is a problem for Carrier and others who would introduce Bayesian methods into historical practice. If Rule #1 of historical inference is to follow Hume, and Rule #1 is an absolute necessity (that is, it is not a heuristic), then there can be no usefully Bayesian approach to history.

Somebody might find that following Hume and not Laplace is desirable. Carl Sagan did, for example. Regardless, that is what is at stake in this thread and the previous one.

Neil

What follows is my position in the controversy before us. I understand that you disagree. It is my view that:

In order to be evidence, something must actually be observed. What is observed in the Bickerman case is Josephus' report. What the report describes is not evidence, so we never reach the question of whether it is primary or secondary evidence. It's not evidence, full stop. The description is the evidence, not what it describes.

Two distinct criteria for designation as primary have been proposed in the successive threads. Under one (the earlier thread's), Joephus' description lacks interpretation or traditional contamination. It is primary evidence. Under the other (the current thread's), it is later than the events for which the report is being used as evidence. It is secondary evidence.

Intuition suggests that the one and the same observation has the same bearing on the same hypotheses regardless of how the observation is labeled, primary or secondary. That implies that it is harmless to change the definition of those terms, which is what Bickerman did in your account.

It is irrelevant to the value of Josephus' report that you would prefer not to characterize Bickerman's behavior that way. It is also irrelevant that you would prefer to say that Rule #1 was diluted rather than relaxed, or that you'd prefer not to say that a different heuristic was used instead, which it was. What can be distinguished are different.

The additional investigative work Bickerman did (for example, seeking external corroboration for the report) needs no special motivation or explanation. Rule #1 itself contemplates critical examination apart from "prioritzing."

If Bickerman prefers to organize his own report by mapping his investigation onto a possible interpretation of Rule #1, then that's swell. A report of the same activities organized differently (say, prefaced by a statement like "All my observations are of things made later than the events I'm investigating, nevertheless my observations bear.") would have the same usefulness for resolving the underlying uncertainty.

Good post. Clear and well thought out. Always appreciated. It is sometimes difficult to proceed from discussing general, undergraduate, common sense principles to a more precise and sophisticated specific issue. Choice of heuristic and precise scope are important but it is always the goal to reach the best conclusion you can given what you have, regardless of how you want to characterize what a particular historian has done as following a predetermined set of "rules."

[Paul the Uncertain]

Paul E.

Thank you very much for the kind words.

it is always the goal to reach the best conclusion you can given what you have

Neil

Yes, evidence is something observed. How can it be anything else?

If evidence must be observed, then the evidence before us must be the received description itself, not what is described in it. We don't know whether or not anybody observed what Josephus described.

Josephus's description does not lack interpretation.

The purportedly verbatim portion lacks acknowledged interpretation, and so far nobody has firmly denied our ability to isolate that portion within the larger work. The classification of that portion is the question before us.

What we appear to have in the secondary evidence of Josephus is a nested verbatim copy of the contents of a primary source.

Which is secondary evidence by the current thread's defintion, primary evidence by the previous thread's, and primary by Bickerman's case-specific definition.

The situation is completely routine, by the way. I read genealogies with colorful anecdotes interspersed with transcriptions of vital records, church records, wills, land deeds, inscriptions on no longer extant grave markers that the genealogist observed, etc. I've written genealogical sketches whose evidence included later verbatim transcriptions of treaties, and other records of governmental operations.

Bickerman's argument enables us to avoid that confusion.

There would be no confusion to avoid if the defintion that led off the previous thread were used. Josephus' description is to be given whatever weight it deserves, without any "belated evidence" penalty, because the description lacks the features that would render it secondary in an epsitemologically relevant sense.

Did I say rule was diluted?

No, you implied it. In this thread, where the term primary source refers to when the evidence was made, you wrote, "If there is a dilution of the Rule #1 it lies only in the fact that we appear to have the verbatim intellectual content of the primary source without its material container."

Yes, that is a fact, ergo yes, there is a dilution of Rule #1.

What do you mean by "heuristic", exactly? Do you mean "method" or something that could be expressed more simply and plainly?

It is the standard term for any procedural advice which is inadmissible for use in a demonstration (a mathematical proof, for example), but which is sometimes used in uncertain decision or inference. "Procedural advice" may be a method, but it may be other things. For example, it may be negative ("Don't accept any wooden coins").

It does not appear to be used in the way I -- or Mark Day -- used the term.

The words you quoted from May:

- the historian should prioritize primary sources,

- though

- should nonetheless be critical of these sources.

My description of that quote:

Rule #1 itself contemplates critical examination apart from "prioritzing."

What's the problem?

Bickerman does not rely only upon Josephus to arrive at his conclusion. He relies heavily on Hellenistic sources (260 years before Josephus) in order to arrive at his conclusion. I'm not sure if you understood that part.

I understand it fine. Bickerman does not base his classification of Josephus' statement on the date Josephus wrote, but uses a different basis for his treatment of it as primary. Bickerman could have relied, but did not, on the definition of the previous thread's OP, which yields the same conclusion, and requires only the description itself.

Regardless, the Hellenistic sources have their own bearing on the questions of ultimate interest. As I said, how Bickerman organizes his own argument doesn't change the bearing of the whole body of evidence on the ultimate questions. If he wants to organize his exposition around a Rule #1 framework, then why not?

[neilgodfrey]

Uncertain Paul, I am sometimes very slow to reply to your comments because I find them very difficult to understand and need to read them several times, very slowly, bit by bit, to try to grasp isolated points you are making.

But I regret the effort when I am met with more of the same and find myself unable to follow your further reply.

I see points you make that clearly (to me) misunderstand what I have written previously, and others that appear to confuse terms and/or the specific references in my argument.

I once asked you to try to demonstrate what it is that you understand about my argument by summing it up in your words before replying. It would help if you could do that.

Unless you express your argument more simply and clearly and demonstrate a clear understanding of the point you are addressing then I will have to avoid your comments completely -- simply because I do not know what you are trying to say and I do not get the impression you understand what I am trying to say.

[Paul the Uncertain]

Neil

Uncertain Paul, I am sometimes very slow to reply to your comments because I find them very difficult to understand and need to read them several times, very slowly, bit by bit, to try to grasp isolated points you are making.

I feel your pain. Uncertain reasoning is a very difficult subject.

I once asked you to try to demonstrate what it is that you understand about my argument by summing it up in your words before replying. It would help if you could do that.

I have backed up each of the few points I've made about your case by quotes from you or pointers to your posts. Have I cherry-picked? Have I misquoted? Have I otherwise misrepresented something you've said? If so, then it should be easy enough for you to point out my specific lapse. If not, then how could I possibly improve upon your exposition of your own case?

It's a bad sign when I quote you quoting May, and then in reply you ask me what I meant by a word that May chose to use and you chose to quote.

How do you figure that that would be something that it's my responsibility to fix?

I am confident that we understand each other well enough. We just disagree.

[neilgodfrey]

I feel your pain. Uncertain reasoning is a very difficult subject.

The only "uncertainty" I detect in your comments is word-games that rip my words out of context and/or change their meanings and sometimes substituting other terms, apparent synonyms, to add to ambiguities.

I have backed up each of the few points I've made about your case by quotes from you or pointers to your posts. Have I cherry-picked? Have I misquoted? Have I otherwise misrepresented something you've said? If so, then it should be easy enough for you to point out my specific lapse. If not, then how could I possibly improve upon your exposition of your own case?

See above. You are so very certain that you understand my own words but refuse to sum up my argument in your own words to demonstrate to me that you really do understand anything I have said.

It's a bad sign when I quote you quoting May, and then in reply you ask me what I meant by a word that May chose to use and you chose to quote.

See above.

How do you figure that that would be something that it's my responsibility to fix?

You are playing games, Paul. I have no more time for your nonsense. Your obscurities and ambiguities serve you well as defence shields.

I am confident that we understand each other well enough. We just disagree.

You have not demonstrated to me that you understand a single word I have written and I sure as hell don't understand you. I have come to regret bending over backwards at times to give you the benefit of the doubt and trying to take you seriously. I give up (finally).

[MrMacSon]

^ Cheers Ben. Your commentary provides good context -eg. "Matthew swallows Mark virtually whole".

Do you think Justin and Irenaeus contributed to some standardization of the texts?

I am honestly not sure. I think there is a tendency to pin such things on whatever "big names" are available, and of course sometimes it is the "big names" that did those things. But we need to remember that we know very few names of the many which undoubtedly existed. This is not a claim that Christianity was any huge phenomenon at the time, but rather a recognition that it probably consisted of more than the relatively few names we know from century II.

That said, I bet Irenaeus was in a position to influence the text. I am not so sure about Justin.

Robert M. Price fingers Polycarp as the compiler of a chunk of the NT (a suggestion I am by no means rootedly opposed to), and of course Irenaeus may have continued his legacy.

But so much of this has to remain speculation, does it not? Is Irenaeus describing texts he has recently himself edited? Or is he describing texts which he received pretty much in the same fashion as he presents them? Hard to tell, really.

Cheers, again. On thing that intrigues me is the spatial positioning or origin of many key people, early Christian texts, and characters in those texts in Asia Minor (and, in the case of some Pauline epistles, across the Aegean Sea to Greece-proper). There are allusions to trips to or residence or ultimate fate in Rome for characters from Paul and Peter through to Martyr, etc.

These people, texts, and characters are distant to where the key NT stories are set ie. distant to Galilee and Judea.

Then we have a key patristic in Irenaeus originating in Smyrna yet residing in the far west in Lyons (as Joe often says, "yes, 'Lyons' ") while supposedly writing much of his commentary. And then Tertullian is based across the Mediterranean in Carthage.

It's like things are spread around to give an illusion of a widespread belief and, in doing so, that hides the fact the commentary is distant to where the story originated.

[Ben C. Smith]

Cheers, again. One thing that intrigues me is the spatial positioning or origin of many key people, early Christian texts, and characters in those texts in Asia Minor (and, in the case of some Pauline epistles, across the Aegean Sea to Greece-proper).

I think Asia Minor is a very key location for Christianity in century II. A while ago I went on kind of a kick trying to trace various traditions and such through that province:

A collection of texts concerning Quartodecimanism.
A suggestion regarding the beloved disciple.
Irenaeus and John, the disciple of the Lord.
Papias and the disciples of the Lord.
John versus Paul in nine movements.

[Peter Kirby]

Without primary sources we don't have ways to fathom the veracity of tradition. That doesn't make those stories wrong per se, just currently unusable for historical purposes. No?

The OP and the cited example therein set the stage for a resounding "no."

It may not be the only way to get to that no, but it looks like a convincing one.

{omitted}

Underlining specifically to highlight your "without primary sources" and the references to not "having" "primary sources."

For me, Bickerman found a primary source in an unusual place.

For you, spin, what is a "primary source"?

[Peter Kirby]

For me, Bickerman found likely primary information in a an unusual way.

For you, MrMacSon, what is a "primary source"? And is that different from "primary information"? If so, how?

[spin]

For you, spin, what is a "primary source"?

Anything that gives us direct information to the topic/period under investigation. And its status as primary must always be able to be questioned at any time. Mostly that status is obvious.

(Literary sources with their claims to enlighten what we investigate become problematic, not so much because they are not autographs, but because the transmission itself is questionable, for example through scribal errors or deliberate—usually ideological—intervention and this latter issue is mostly opaque to similar ideological view-holders.)