EB and the West

[SigniferOne]

Well, really there's no way I am going to respond to all the other posters here, nor do I have an inclination to. But I picked out oudysseos's post to respond to, as it seemed to me the most philosophical of all the others.

I am going to try and be rational, but I found much of what Signifer had to say [...] full of cultural prejudice.

Thank you :)

The whole argument is ( by the standards of Western Classical Philosophy and Logical Thinking ) poorly structured and full of weird assertions not supported by scholarship. The argument fails totally if it can be demonstrated that Signifer's list is not original or unique to Western Culture, and Urnamma has already done an excellent job in doing just that. Not much to add there, but I do have to say that I had a huge laugh at algebra being attributed to the ancient classical west. Look it up. Even wikipedia gets that one right.

Alright well, what I had in mind were the algebraic developments in 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, such as by Diophantus. I am well aware that the word "algebra" comes from the Arabic textbook, but am referring to the actual mathematics involved. Quoting from your wiki, which "gets it right":

Those who support Diophantus point to the fact that the algebra found in Al-Jabr is more elementary than the algebra found in Arithmetica and that Arithmetica is syncopated while Al-Jabr is fully rhetorical. (emphasis mine)

Diophantus of Alexandria (Greek: Διόφαντος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς b. between 200 and 214, d. between 284 and 298 AD), sometimes called "the father of algebra", was a Greek mathematician of the Hellenistic period. He is the author of a series of classical mathematical books called Arithmetica and worked with equations which we now call Diophantine equations; the method to solve those problems is now called Diophantine analysis. The study of Diophantine equations is one of the central areas of number theory. The findings and works of Diophantus have influenced mathematics greatly and caused many other questions to arise. The most famous of these is Fermat's Last Theorem.

Refrain in the future from being rude and ordering me to look something up.

And that bit about music is pure ignorance and personal prejudice. He thinks music prior to JS Bach sounds 'semitic', 'oriental' or 'egyptian'

That's not what I said. Nor could I possibly have said it, since the polytonal music of which JS Bach was the champion took its actual origins in 1100s in Christian monasteries. I said ancient Roman or Greek music sounds semitic, which I defined as close similarity to music that was actually semitic or eastern. Nor did I say it can't be 'westernism', I said it does not have enough distinguishing characteristics to be specifically Western, specifically Greek and Roman. It doesn't matter what influence it had on good people. How many incorrect assumptions are you going to attribute to me, and then lecture me on proper presentation of logical arguments?

Besides music is music, and even before it became polytonal in the West (the supreme achievement), it could still be good and resonate with people's feelings in its earlier stages.

Actually, Signifer's ignorance about algebra is a perfect illustration of the wishful thinking that informs his definition of what it means to be western: he has picked out the things that he thinks are admirable or impressive and claims them for western culture, regardless of their actual origin. Anything else is non-western, regardless of where the Celts (f'r instance) actually lived and followed their highly developed material culture, or how much of that 'non-western' culture influenced the development of 'westernism'. But hey, don't believe me- ask Herodotus, who often attributes much of greek culture and science with oriental origins. And he was born in Turkey.

Let's not make a hyperbolic argument shall we? Herodotus doesn't attribute "much of greek culture and science" to oriental origins. He says the Babylonians had an astrolabe. The facts are that some of Eratosthenes' calculations were an improvement over old Babylonian observations. Herodotus doesn't say the drama came from the orient, it came from Aeschylus. He doesn't say history came from the orient; it came from Hellanicus. He doesn't say poetry came from the orient; it came from Homer. He doesn't say the Greek polis came from the orient; he says how the Greek polis defeated the orient. As you can see, I am no dolt; please produce a more intellectually sound response in the future, especially since I have not attacked you even once. As you might know, that is called ad hominem and is a logical fallacy, recommended for avoidance in the future.

(does he even know who Abu Musa Jabir or Ibn Rushd or al-Farabi or Ibn Sina were?)

Great men.

Gaah. Trying to keep calm. Trying not to resort to adhominem attacks.

I hope so.