Sophistry

The more I thought about what Pliny the Elder had said, the more I became convinced that he was using sophistry.

Pliny, I said, it isn't true our clothes are upside down when we look at them. It's not our clothes that are upside down, but our eyes.

Go on, said Pliny.

You see, if we were to turn around with our head still in the looking-down-at-our-clothes position, and looked into the mirror......yes I realise this would not be easy..... perhaps by crooking our arm and looking through the gap between arm and body, then we would see the clothes on the person in the mirror upside down as well.

I cannot argue with your logic, said Pliny. And the person in the mirror would be you, in that case.

You were easy to convince, Pliny!

I saw you trying it in front of the mirror, just now. It was a convincing proof.

I do enjoy philosophy, I said.

Yes indeed, agreed Pliny. We have acquitted ourselves well. Nor could we be accused of 'digesting without eating' as Iris Murdoch accused her male philosophers of doing.

Why not, Pliny?

Because all of this resulted from the eating of a muffin.

So it did!

If it was a muffin, he added.

Of course it was a muffin, I muttered under my breath.

The Pointy End

You were very quick to agree about the geometry set, I said to Pliny the Elder. I didn't think you ancient Romans thought all that much of geometry.

True, said Pliny. Schoolboys in ancient Rome were generally taught their letters, counting and music at home until they were twelve, then they would go to a school of literature to learn grammar, logic, rhetoric and dialectics. Mathematics and geometry were rather looked down upon as being used by builders and other such people.

So why do you think I should buy one for little Sefu? I asked. Is it because Quintilian recommended the study of geometry? First for the mental training developed by the subject through the logical progression of axioms and proofs. Secondly for its use in political discussions and questions of land measurement?

No, said Pliny.

Well, is it because, as you yourself point out in your Natural Histories, Pamphilus, the first artist to practice painting as a liberal art and the first in painting to be learned in all letters, especially arithmetic and geometry, claimed that without geometry art could never be perfect?

No, said Pliny.

What then?

I simply thought that a fierce-looking child like that would look with glee upon the sharp pointy end of a compass.