Against a Positivist Reading of Historical Texts

Last updated on: September 9, 2009 at 7:04 am by Henry Karlson

Against a Positivist Reading of Historical Texts 2009-09-09T07:04:40-05:00 Henry Karlson

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When looking at history, and read texts from different eras, we must be willing to interpret the text with as much charity as possible. This is because it is easy to read a text, think its ideas are entirely out of fashion in the modern age, mock it, only to discern, much later, that the general ideas proposed in it remain with us today, albeit in a different form.

A favorite example of this come from the works of Marsilio Ficino. Ficino was one of the great thinkers of his age: indeed, one can say he was *the* renaissance man, if there ever was one (he lived from 1433- 1499). He was the first person to translate the complete Platonic corpus into Latin, and provided with it significant commentaries which helped the West re-integrate the ideas of Plato into its philosophical tradition (including, of course, the occult side of Platonism, which has led to some criticism, since it is clear he thought of himself as a kind of magus). In his philosophical pursuits, he helped establish the idea of “Platonic love,” a notion which remains with his today. His philosophy led him to pursue aesthetics, and to take artisans seriously (he was himself a noted musician). He was a priest who was being considered for the bishopric of Florence. He was also a trained physician, who treated people with the best of his abilities (using all fashion of lore, including those which we would now consider occult, but in his day, was normative). All of this should help us understand the background of the following, interesting quote:

Good doctors try, with human blood distilled in fire, to restore those whom old age has eaten away. What is wrong with our giving this drink of blood if it will restore people who are almost half-dead with age? It is a common and ancient opinion that certain old women who were fortune tellers (which we call witches) used to suck the blood of infants and become rejuvenated from it.

Why then not have our own old people – who have no other hope – suck the blood of an adolescent – of a willing adolescent, I mean, who is clean, happy, temperate and whose blood is excellent but perhaps a little excessive? They could suck it the way leeches do, an ounce or two from a vein on the left arm barely opened. Afterward, they should take an equal among of sugar and wine, and they should do the sucking while hungry and thirsty and with the Moon rising.

If they cannot digest this raw blood, cook it up beforehand with some sugar, or distill it into some moderately warm water, mixed with sugar, and then have them drink it.[1]

It is to be noted that before this passage, Ficino also suggested that the milk of maidens could also be considered as a source of vitality and life for those who are old. The point of these texts is clear: Ficino is looking at the way the body is being worn down with age, and considers it possible that some sort of restoration can be done if a willing youth would donate some of their own vitality to the aged. Historically, this idea made sense, and indeed, became quite popular – so popular that many in the nobility took Ficino’s advice, whether or not the youth was willing. Vampire lore clearly came about in part because of this idea. Reading this, without pondering how these texts connect to modern society, might leave one feeling more than a little nauseated.

But we should not be so quick to read and condemn what Ficino has written about here. The point Ficino was trying to make remains with us today; the medical industry continues to flourish in the use of donated blood, this time its use perfected (blood is now not eaten, but directly introduced into the patient’s veins). And the idea that someone who is healthy might want to donate a part of their health to someone they care about and love remains – how many people are alive today because someone donated a kidney? What might first appear to be a sickening discourse ends up being, when read in this light, a far-thinking insight, an idea which was, to an extent right, but the methodology to put it into practice had not yet been established. The same is often the case with many other things we ridicule about the past today. Alchemy clearly was the inspiration for many sciences – generally, we think of chemistry and psychology – but we can and should include others, such as geology, since the idea of a transmutation of elements was based upon notions of geological evolution with the desire to speed up a natural process. Again, the methodologies for this might have proven wrong, but the general insight was right, and it was only centuries of trial and error until the right method was found (and with it, the right ordering of elements and the processes by which elements transform through time).

Positivism has helped bring ridicule to the past, calling our ancestors so ignorant that they had little they could offer us in the present age. Perhaps the ones who were ignorant were the ones who were so quick to dismiss the past. A little research can provide us clues to the genius of humanity throughout all time, even if that genius has, through that time, developed understanding of sciences which it did not know about earlier. That understanding would have been impossible, however, if our ancestors didn’t have a good general principle which they used to conduct their own research – indeed, they had a greater ability to qualify their findings than positivists of later centuries, for they were willing to develop and improve their thoughts, understanding the limitations of human reason. Perhaps that is the kind of humility humanity needs to learn today more than anything else.

Footnote

[1] Marsilio Ficino, Book of Life. trans. Charles Boer (Woodstock, Connecticut: Spring Publications, 1996), 57.

Henry Karlson

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