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Post by James Hannam on Oct 15, 2010 16:32:24 GMT
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Post by timoneill on Oct 20, 2010 22:51:05 GMT
I just kindly directed the author of that blog to my critique of Freeman's thesis and his bizarre replies. I'm a very thoughtful chap who just likes to help, you see.
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Post by timoneill on Oct 23, 2010 21:30:12 GMT
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Post by timoneill on Oct 23, 2010 21:34:24 GMT
PS You might need a packed lunch before embarking on reading his review though - it's Freeman Verbal Diarrhoea in full prolix flight.
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Post by merkavah12 on Oct 23, 2010 23:07:15 GMT
Allow me to summarize the good Doctor's thesis. *ahem* WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! WHY ME NOT INVITED!? I R DOING GOOD HISTORY! TIM AND JAMES MAKE ME LOOK DUM DUM! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! *ahem* That about sums it up.
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Post by unkleE on Oct 24, 2010 4:25:10 GMT
I know nothing about this period of history, and I must confess, I gave up on the article after a few screens, but not before this:
"It catches the mood of serendipitous ramblings, anecdotes and asides that make it an easy read but hardly a serious contribution to our understanding of medieval and sixteenth century science."
My understanding was the "God's Philosophers" is a result of James' PhD thesis. Are we to assume, then, that they hand out PhD's these days to people who haven't done any research and make no serious contribution to historical study???
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Post by wraggy on Oct 24, 2010 9:35:13 GMT
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Post by James Hannam on Oct 24, 2010 10:24:34 GMT
It's long, isn't it. I must have upset him.
Freeman is not a doctor, he's a retired school teacher. Nothing wrong with that, but academic training can help.
Also, I'm puzzled about the Royal Society Prize comment. One of the judges was Robin Ince who is founder of the Christmas time celebration of all things Dawkins called the Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People. He's also a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.
Finally I note that Freeman thinks I left out Copernicus's debt to Arabic astronomers. Clearly his edition of God's Philosophers is missing page 276.
I've been meaning to say something about the humanism thing that has been controversial among more knowledgeable critics. I'll try to get around to that.
By the way, Unklee, my PhD thesis is not the basis of the book although there is a little cross over. Theses have to be very focused and don't tend to make good popular books. Also, during the course of researching and writing my thesis, I changed my mind about some things which it was too late to change. So, the thesis doesn't represent my current thinking on important areas. The evidence that it presents is good, but I'd probably draw different conclusions today.
Best wishes
James
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Post by chuff on Oct 24, 2010 22:50:31 GMT
Let me preface this post by saying that when it comes to knowledge in the field of history, I'm probably a level below amateur so bear with me if I say something stupid. But a few things in Freeman's review made me scratch my head. First of all there is the part where he takes the time to pat himself on the back for his work in The Closing of the Western Mind: In my book The Closing of the Western Mind, I devoted the final chapter to “Thomas Aquinas and the Restoration of Reason”. I made my way through Boethius, Eriugena and Anselm to the major Christian theologians and gave Aquinas a special accolade.Wait a second here, wasn't Freeman's omission of Boethius one of the things that Tim ripped into him about while reviewing his book? Am I missing something here, or is Charlie trying to pull a fast one on us? Also, I noticed that Freeman spent that whole review trying to hammer James' thesis that the Middle Ages laid the foundations for Science with quotes from Edward Grant's book. Now this is the same Edward Grant who upon reviewing God's Philosophers said that James "argues persuasively that the Middle Ages laid the foundations for early modern science, a view I have held for some years." This leads me to believe that either Freeman was cherry-picking evidence from Grant or that Grant lost his marbles while reviewing God's Philosophers. Grant's review also calls into question Freeman's paragraph at the end where Freeman starts babbling on about how historians haven't seemed to notice the book. Given that Grant's positive review is pretty much pasted right on the front of James' website, next to two positive reviews from Oxbridge historians, I'm not sure why Freeman is having so much trouble finding what historians with an interest in the Middle Ages think about God's Philosophers. Especially when you consider that Freeman mentions early in the review that if one visits James' website to explore the background for God's Philosophers, he would find that it's basically nothing more than Catholic apologetics in the guise of history.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Oct 25, 2010 17:03:11 GMT
Well that was fun, but at 11,000 words a bit long to say the least. i'm assuming Charlie Freeman's review only appeared in the online edition of the New Humanist, otherwise it would have taken up the whole magazine.
This was the best bit:
'Galileo emphatically denies that the natural philosophers have anything for him and so Hannam’s argument ends up in almost as total a collapse as the economy of early medieval Europe.'
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Post by perplexedseeker on Oct 25, 2010 17:23:33 GMT
The criticism I can understand (that's part and parcel of academia) but why all the bile? And why the personal attacks and constantly talking about Catholics? Is Freeman always like this?
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Post by humphreyclarke on Oct 25, 2010 17:32:33 GMT
The criticism I can understand (that's part and parcel of academia) but why all the bile? And why the personal attacks and constantly talking about Catholics? Is Freeman always like this? Yep, but it's usually restricted to a short but pretty rambling blog comment. We aren't usually treated to 11,000 words of it; unless you count his books of course.
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Post by timoneill on Oct 27, 2010 4:20:34 GMT
I still haven't sat down to plough through the whole of Freeman's review, partly because Freeman's ponderous crap sets my teeth on edge and partly because I know once I read it I'll have to write a critique of it and I have too many projects on the go already. But the comments are amusing. Humphrey notes:"Perhaps the first thing to point out is that contra Freeman, the books has been noticed and reviewed by professional historians including Dr Patricia Fara, Dr Allan Chapman, Dr Shana Worthen and, of course, the much mentioned Professor Edward Grant ." And ol' Charlie replies: "Having asked around, I can find no evidence that the book has even been heard of within the mainstream history community - perhaps it was not sent out to reviewers there. " WTF? You couldn't get comedy like this if you paid for it. Then who turns up but the muddle-brained Iain Mott, whose confused review of James' book was followed up with some sharp but perceptive comments by some rude chap called "O'Neill". He responsed with such woolly-brained babble that even the usually indefatigable Irish-Australian bastard withdrew in despair. Not surprisingly Woolly-brain and ol' Charlie seem to be getting on famously. It's like a match made in Hell ...
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Post by wraggy on Oct 27, 2010 6:32:36 GMT
From this point forth, you shall be called "Hannams' Bulldog".
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Post by James Hannam on Oct 27, 2010 10:28:13 GMT
Freeman refers to a professor of the history of science who approved his comments and said he'd laid my book aside (unread, I assume) as not worth bothering with.
I can't help wondering who this might be. There are not many professors of the history of science and even fewer whom I don't know at least slightly.
My money is on David Wootton at York whose new book on Galileo would have alerted Freeman. He is a professor and indeed a brilliant professor. And I know he was sent a copy of my book out of politeness because I made heavy use of his previous work Bad Medicine. Wootton is also a self confessed rationalist and his Galileo book underplays both Galileo's medieval debts and his Catholicism.
But I'm just guessing.
Best wishes
James
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