In Robert Bartlett’s The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (2008), he pauses to wonder how historians deal with beliefs our subjects hold but “we” don’t.
The premise is that most people reading this book believe in the existence neither of female creatures who go around at night replacing men?s hearts with hearts of straw nor in dog-headed people in India or anywhere else. This premise will enable me to use that dangerous pronoun ?we? freely. So I can now pose the question, what do ?we? do about beliefs ?we? do not share?
In particular, historians must raise the difficult question, even if they cannot answer it, of whether past beliefs we think false require different kinds of explanation and interpretations from past beliefs we think true. For instance, Isaac Newton, the scientist who discovered the laws of gravity, also accepted the truth of biblical prophecies and alchemy. If we believe in gravity but not in alchemy (vice versa would do just as well, of course), do we need to approach analysis of Newton?s thinking on the two topics in different way? Newton himself said, ?A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true.? When writing the Principia was he then ?understanding,? but when he studies the transmutation of metals, was he then only ?imagining??
Ultimately, Bartlett, concludes “we have not really created a category of being by a common lack of belief on our part. ?Things we don?t believe in? is certainly a subjective category for us but corresponds poorly, if at all, to a class of objects in the world” (106-8).
What do you think?
This sounds like another reason to bracket out the factual status of supernatural claims and try instead to understand the worldview of the people who held the beliefs in question. Trying to understand connections between gravity and alchemy in Newton’s thought sounds like an interesting project. Demonstrating that alchemy does not actually work? Not interesting.
When I’ve been working on astrological and prophetic pamphlets, often the harder cases aren’t on the boundary between beliefs ‘we’ share and those ‘we’ don’t, but cases that seem at first glance so outlandish that one wonders if it is not actually something that the author believed, but rather a conscious fraud perpetrated on contemporaries and future generations. (Uh, you printed that ‘recently discovered prophecy’ in 1565, and again two years later, but with the date of discovery changed? Seriously?) I like to attribute good faith to the people I study, but there are occasionally difficult moments. Am I being gullible, or do I lack imagination and therefore the ability to truly understand what people 500 years ago were thinking?
Comment by Jonathan Green — November 21, 2010 @ 6:32 pm
Newton was fully able to account for his physical observations with his gravitational theory.
He was unable to account for his chemical observations with alchemical theory: it was simply insufficiently developed.
However, there were some chemical experiments which seemed to support the alchemical model. It was the best available model at the time.
Independent of the error or correctness of the underlying theory, Newton’s observations were correct.
This is very different thing from saying, “I saw dog-headed people in India” – an incorrect observation. I am not sure how it applies.
Maybe I need to read the book.
Comment by Matthew Chapman — November 22, 2010 @ 9:26 am
Good point about bracketing, Jonathan, but I do wonder if there is a difference for the historian between bracketed things that the historian believes and those which s/he does not.
Matthew, this would not be the book to read in regards to the shift between pre-modern and modern views of the world. Bartlett just mentions Newton anecdotally. However, Newton and the shifts caused by the new “natural philosophy” continues to be a hot topic. Newton’s mechanical philosophy became central for Newton’s contemporary natural philosophers in attacking things like astrology, alchemy, and biblical prophecy, so that fact that Newton believed in some of those things is quite the paradox. I’ve read a little bit on this and many actually put up another post if I can think of how it’s relevant to the JI.
Comment by Steve Fleming — November 22, 2010 @ 7:43 pm
between bracketed things that the historian believes and those which s/he does not.
Isn’t this were empathy comes in? We can easily empathize with Newton’s grasp of physics, even though we realize that Newtonian physics don’t really describe reality.It is just a bit harder for us to empathize with alchemy (or fairy lore), for example.
Comment by J. Stapley — November 22, 2010 @ 8:40 pm
You bring up an interesting point J. Since most historians have only a very cursory knowledge (if that) of what is wrong with Newtonian physics, are those with a lack of thorough scientific understanding only “imagining” when they discuss these issues? Does your scientific training give a different view? My point is only that sometimes it can be hard to pin down exactly what “we” believe.
Comment by Steve Fleming — November 23, 2010 @ 3:07 pm
Matthew, I’m not sure that distinction between alchemy and chemistry works since both were under development. (i.e. both were too undeveloped) I think the truer story is that those who distinguished between alchemy and chemistry like Boyle persuaded more people. It makes sense since the aims are quite different. Thus alchemy didn’t develop the way chemistry did. But originally the distinction was quite blurry.
So the problem to me is defining what alchemical theory even was given it was a moving target.
Comment by Clark — November 23, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
To add, while the “bracketing” method is popular (witness Rough Stone Rolling) I personally have some troubles with it. I think history has to engage with what is real. Folks can go overboard into positivism of course. But I think it’s a false dichotomy to suggest those the only choices. (Not that anyone here is making that claim)
So I think a bio of Newton can’t simply bracket the falsity of alchemy.
Comment by Clark — November 23, 2010 @ 6:32 pm