317. Made by Hand: Byzantine Manuscripts

Had Byzantium survived another 50yr we would also have printed texts. It’s sad that the great empire fell when it did. :(

Lectio difficilior potior - the principle suggests that the more unusual one is more likely the original

That's from Wiki, and more or less it is how quoted scholars further down the page refer to it, as they highlight its pros and cons.

It seems the principle would be better thought of as something like, 'The more unusual or difficult variant of a text should be preserved above others only if all other possible or likely interpretations can be derived from it.'

Thoughts?

I found today's episode fascinating and answered some questions I have had but never took to the opportunity to look at. I have told all my friends about the series (and my more mature students) and some have even thanked me later after listening to some episods. I thought this episode particularly interesting (I am more a historian than a philosopher) and I await next week's episode with great interest.

An interesting example of selective transmission of texts in modern times can be found in the library of the Rugby Colony in East Tennessee. The colony was founded in about 1880 by Thomas Hughes, the author of Tom Brown's Schooldays as a refuge for second sons of the nobilty who had fewer career options than their older brothers.  The first librarian for the town sent out a request to vitually all publishers of books and periodicals in America and England for samples of their current catalogues. Thus, the library's collection repressents a nearly complete slice of what was in print for several years in the early 1880s. The commune failed. The town remains. The library with its collection is intact and available for study as a time capsule full of the materials most libraries quickly discard: seed and clothing catalogues, journals with the latest farming methods, novels that no one bought, 

https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4007/       

Great piece showing the importance of philology to the history of philosophy. Thank you for this. It is so important, but you rarely find introductory explanations of the most simple concepts and necessities of philology.

I want to add one thing just to make it clear: Modern-day Islam haters try to make up the case that the cultural breakdown of antiquity and the loss of many ancient texts happened especially and almost only because "the Muslims" cut-off the supply of papyrus. This is nonsense, of course. The shift of the predominant writing technology away from papyrus towards the use of parchment happened clearly before Islam even came into being. Inner conflicts of the Christian world such as political and economic turmoil and the difficulties of Christianity to arrange with pagan scholarship played the essential role, not any influence by "the Muslims" (who, by the way, were not so reluctant to embrace pagan scholarship, at least not in the first centuries).