Hecataeus of Abdera, a Greek historian who lived at the end of the fourth century BCE, tells an amusing story about a certain march in which he participated during, or just following, Alexander the Great’s conquest of the ancient Near East:
“When I was on the march toward the Red Sea, among the escort of Jewish cavalrymen who accompanied us was a certain Mosollamus [Hebrew Meshullam], a very intelligent man, robust, and by common consent, the very best of bowmen, whether Greek or barbarian.
This man, noticing that a number of people were now idling on the path and that the whole force was being held up by a seer who was taking the auguries, asked why they were stopping. The seer pointed to a certain bird he was observing, and told him that if it stayed in that spot, they would do well to wait around for a while. If it got up and flew forward, then they would be free to proceed; if, however, it flew backward, they were to turn back.
The Jew, without saying a word, drew his bow and shot, hitting the bird and killing it. The seer and some of the others became indignant and began heaping curses on him. “What you poor people getting so upset about?” he asked. Then, picking up the bird in his hand, he said: “How could any sound information about our journey have been provided by this poor creature, who was unable to make provision for his own safety? For if he had any gift for divination, he never would have come to this place, for fear of being killed by an arrow from Mosollamus the Jew.”
The conclusion happens to be correct but the argument looks invalid to me. A man can smash a clock or a compass just as easily, but that doesn’t prove that these defenseless devices cannot provide useful information.
The real argument may have went something like this: “I am a very busy and violent man, who, as I have just demonstrated, is quite accurate with a deadly projectile weapon. In light of this, would you perhaps prefer to rethink your policy of holding up my entire army ?”
I don’t think the implicit argument is anywhere near as simple as ‘anything which provides information cannot be destroyed; this bird was destroyed; QED, this bird does not provide information.’
What is it, then? A more complicated implicit argument can still fail. (I can easily imagine a situation where the behavior of birds does provide information about the enemy army over the next hill, or something.) To rule out divination you really need to bring out the big guns and rule out all mysticism. I’m not sure any participants in the story could do that.
I imagine the argument would go something like ‘Creatures usually act to preserve themselves; if the bird knew the future actions of the army, it would know about being shot by that Jew; if it knew about being shot, it would not be there (since it wants to preserve itself); the augur’s interpretation is true only if the bird knows; it was shot, so it did not know; it did not know, so the augur’s interpretation is false.’
There are ways we can rescue this if we want to make excuses for augury and I’m sure you can think of 3 or 4 counter-arguments, but why bother? It’s a good story - ‘physician, heal thyself!’
The argument was wrong even by the standards of the time. You just misunderstand the concept of divination :-) It doesn’t rely on the bird consciously knowing anything. In fact, instead of watching the bird, you can kill it and inspect its entrails. Divination works (or doesn’t) because the will of the gods leaks into the pattern of visible things (or doesn’t).
You can patch the argument easily; either the gods want their will known or not. If they don’t, then the augur is screwed; if they do, then they want the bird to survive (to the point where the augur can figure out what was meant); and so on.
No, but the people who believed in the Greek deities also typically believed those deities were heavily invested in immediate mortal conflicts and highly sensitive to slights. Those Greeks would have expected some protection for the bird or retaliation against Meshullam. Seeing none would provide evidence that the bird was not a favorite of any of their deities.
It seems that any wrong argument for a correct conclusion has a decent chance of being patchable into a correct argument by a sufficiently smart patcher, so arguing about patchability of such arguments doesn’t make much sense.
--James L. Kugel, In the Valley of the Shadow pg 156-157 (doesn’t provide any further reference)
The conclusion happens to be correct but the argument looks invalid to me. A man can smash a clock or a compass just as easily, but that doesn’t prove that these defenseless devices cannot provide useful information.
The real argument may have went something like this: “I am a very busy and violent man, who, as I have just demonstrated, is quite accurate with a deadly projectile weapon. In light of this, would you perhaps prefer to rethink your policy of holding up my entire army ?”
Similar to Solomon’s classic legal argument: “Don’t bother me with petty crap like this or I will slice your baby in half!”
I don’t think the implicit argument is anywhere near as simple as ‘anything which provides information cannot be destroyed; this bird was destroyed; QED, this bird does not provide information.’
What is it, then? A more complicated implicit argument can still fail. (I can easily imagine a situation where the behavior of birds does provide information about the enemy army over the next hill, or something.) To rule out divination you really need to bring out the big guns and rule out all mysticism. I’m not sure any participants in the story could do that.
I imagine the argument would go something like ‘Creatures usually act to preserve themselves; if the bird knew the future actions of the army, it would know about being shot by that Jew; if it knew about being shot, it would not be there (since it wants to preserve itself); the augur’s interpretation is true only if the bird knows; it was shot, so it did not know; it did not know, so the augur’s interpretation is false.’
There are ways we can rescue this if we want to make excuses for augury and I’m sure you can think of 3 or 4 counter-arguments, but why bother? It’s a good story - ‘physician, heal thyself!’
The argument was wrong even by the standards of the time. You just misunderstand the concept of divination :-) It doesn’t rely on the bird consciously knowing anything. In fact, instead of watching the bird, you can kill it and inspect its entrails. Divination works (or doesn’t) because the will of the gods leaks into the pattern of visible things (or doesn’t).
You can patch the argument easily; either the gods want their will known or not. If they don’t, then the augur is screwed; if they do, then they want the bird to survive (to the point where the augur can figure out what was meant); and so on.
The gods are not required to be helpful, especially to the sacrilegious.
No, but the people who believed in the Greek deities also typically believed those deities were heavily invested in immediate mortal conflicts and highly sensitive to slights. Those Greeks would have expected some protection for the bird or retaliation against Meshullam. Seeing none would provide evidence that the bird was not a favorite of any of their deities.
Deorum iniuriae Diis curae. This was not sarcastic or mocking in the slightest bit, as Marius points out and a reading of Herodotus will remind one.
It seems that any wrong argument for a correct conclusion has a decent chance of being patchable into a correct argument by a sufficiently smart patcher, so arguing about patchability of such arguments doesn’t make much sense.
Such runs an argument against the principle of charity, indeed, that it licenses special pleading or endless special-casing.
Nice connection! I see we had a post about that recently.
I’d just shoot the bird and carry it with me. Then whichever way I went was the right one!