This internet thing isn't so bad

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I was just pondering the question of whether I could have produced this podcast series before the internet. Ok, obviously not, since podcasts require the internet; but what I mean is whether I could have put together the scripts. I decided the answer was: yes, but at a much, much slower speed, and only if I had access to a staggeringly good library. Actually I do have access to more than one staggeringly good library here in Munich and make extensive use of them. (Just recently I've learned there is a great collection of books here at the LMU on Indology that I'd never had reason to visit before.) Still, I can use lots of shortcuts that wouldn't have existed previously: not just handy resources like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to get a first orientation on many topics, but also the range of electronic resources available through my library and academia.edu. This is how I get my hands on a lot of the secondary literature I read preparing for script-writing. Probably my reading is about half and half on screen vs on paper. All of which gives me hope that the traditional book (which after all is a technology that's been proving its worth for almost 2000 years) and newer forms of information storage can co-exist and complement each other, rather than the latter pushing the former out of existence as many fear.

Brian Stine on 1 November 2015

I have been very impressed

I have been very impressed with your research on philosophy in the Islamic world. I've benefited from it a great deal and wondered on many occasions how you accumulated that much information. I find that English translations are somewhat scarce, though you offer excellent sources. I've managed to find some, such as Tahâfut al-falâsifa translated into English by a Pakistani press, and also by Brigham Young. You also mention that you translated Al Kindi, but at what point did you acquire proficiency in Arabic? I've been wondering because it's an area of study I'm interested in, but I'm not too certain how feasible for me to explore it academically given my own predicament. As an eastern Christian, I've been curious what influence theologians(maybe St Athanasius, and St Gregory of Nyssa) in that part of the world had on Islamic thinkers.

Peter Adamson on 8 November 2015

Thanks for your kind words! I

Thanks for your kind words! I learned Arabic in grad school, enough to fight my way through a text basically, and have been improving ever since (a lifelong process). It's certainly feasible to learn, in fact I would say that if you've learned ancient Greek you can tackle Arabic, I found them more or less equally difficult except that with Arabic you have fewer cognates. In any case it is very much worth the effort!

Emil on 12 November 2015

Hey! Was just wondering if

Hey! Was just wondering if you'd be doing a podcast on Ramon Llull? Think he's important, since Leibniz was influenced by him, and through him Boole, Hilbert and indirectly Graph Theory and so on.

Peter Adamson on 12 November 2015

Good question. I was thinking

Good question. I was thinking I would not do a whole episode on Llull, but discuss him as background when I do a later episode on mathematical science in the 14th century.

Zurqan on 26 November 2015

Hi, Peter! I have been

Hi, Peter! I have been thinking about this blog post for some time. I wonder if you have any philosophical concerns regarding “books vs. internet.” Obviously there is an aesthetic consideration which tends to overwhelm discussion: that is, some of us prefer a sprawling library full of tangible artefacts to an insipid, perky machine. But beyond that, it seems that there are some epistemological and ethical aspects of our acquisition of information which deserve attention.
Epistemological: how does the substrate for information affect knowledge transmission? Ask an audiophile, and s/he will insist that sound is degraded by MP3 formats, and we should all grow beards and hoard vinyl. Truly, MP3s fail to transmit a complete representation of the original music, but then again, so does vinyl. In the case of knowledge, maybe we are similarly removed from the source (the original speaker, say), but surely something of the design of the speaker, to set his/her words in accordance with a particular printer’s plan, is lost upon their recalibration for internet purposes?
Moreover, are there not other aspects to knowledge-acquisition than simply pouring words into the head? Sense-memory, the influence of our perception of sensible qualities in the medium, may play a role. A century ago, scientists may have insisted that we would be able to get all of the necessary nutritive qualities of food, including calories, in pill form; today, however, you don’t have to be a holistic healer to find such an idea problematic. But I think I have inadvertently moved to the ethical problems.
Ethical: To continue my food illustration, nutrition-pills cannot satisfy the needs associated with eating because those needs are wider than just “nutrition.” I would also suggest that a parallel may be explored with GM foods: the objections to GM foods seem to involve their manipulation of the integrity of the food, and socio-economic factors which may well resemble those of so-called “open source” information, which is not, in fact, “free.” Rather, it is cultivated by internet interests, devaluing scholarly work, and commodifying (through advertisement and the analysis of consumers’ searching trends) that which it claims to be dispensing freely.
Finally, I pose the thought experiment of “knowledge delivered to the knower by God, without mediation.” Supposing it were possible to obtain knowledge of, say, the works of Siger of Brabant, in a single moment, without any effort? Obviously, listening to your podcasts requires valiant and rewarding effort, so I don’t mean to suggest that the internet will turn us into receptive vegetables, but I wonder if you might consider some of the philosophical consequences of such an event.
Sorry for the very long post.

Peter Adamson on 27 November 2015

Thanks, that's a very

Thanks, that's a very interesting comment. I have thought about this a little, especially about the advantages and disadvantages of the podcast form itself - in particular I agree that philosophy isn't just about pouring information into someone else's head, which is one reason I am always happy to get the chance to talk to listeners here or on Facebook or whatever. It's also a reason I included interviews from the start. You must also be right that there is a difference between reading on a screen/tablet or reading a book - I often remember where something was on a page if I read it in a book, but less frequently if I read it on a screen, even my tablet which I use quite a lot for podcast research. We probably underestimate the implications of these new technologies for the way we read, learn, etc. But it will not all be bad, either!

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