Old Email Archive

digest 1997-02-24 #001



11:27 PM 2/23/97 -0800
From: "Society for Literature & Science" 

Daily SLS Email Digest
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Date: 23 Feb 1997 07:17:29 -0800
From: Everdell@aol.com
Subject: Re: question and comment
Mike Merrill asks why we don't consider some sources, e-posts, etc.
"'reliable [of]  citation.'  [though] many of us would cite a
single
*written* source without qualm.  Do we still
believe that  printing in and of itself gives validity to a
statement?"
Wrong question.  In a printed source one can be reasonably sure that
someone
else will find the same words or pictures in the same place.  That's
referrability or citability, whether those words or pictures are
"reliable"
or "true" or not.  The relation of a text of any kind to the
"truth" or
"reality" is another thing entirely.  I should say that the
biggest index of
that kind of reliability is cultural - the ongoing reciprocal testing
done by
and through membership in professions and disciplines.  Mine's history,
which
may be why I felt it necessary to write this.
- -Bill Everdell, Brooklyn
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Date: 23 Feb 1997 15:45:03 -0800
From: richard nash 
Subject: Re: question and comment
On Sun, 23 Feb 1997 Everdell@aol.com wrote:
> "reality" is another thing entirely.  I should say that
the biggest index of
> that kind of reliability is cultural - the ongoing reciprocal
testing done by
> and through membership in professions and disciplines.  Mine's
history, which
> may be why I felt it necessary to write this.
>
When not doing literature and science (and often, even when I am), mine
is eighteenth-century studies.  At the moment that includes Dr.
Johnson's 
tour of Scotland and his denunciation of MacPherson's _Ossian_.  His
letter to Boswell on this point seems appropriate (7 Feb., 1775):
"The state of the question is this. . . Where are the manuscripts? 
They
can be shown if they exist, but they were never shown. . . No man has a
claim to credit upon his word, when better evidence, if he had it, may
be 
easily produced."
Johnson's principle seems reasonably enough to credit evidence
proportionate to the extent to which it can be verified; Sam Johnson,
meet Henry Kissinger.
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Date: 23 Feb 1997 16:30:17 -0800
From: afavell@direct.ca (andrew favell)
Subject:
unsubscribe afavell@direct.ca