This morning I finished reading Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud, by Peter Watson. It’s an intellectual history of humanity from the earliest humans to the beginning of the 20th century. It’s a big, long, sprawling book, and I learned a lot from it (much of which I have promptly forgotten).
In the introduction, Watson puts forth his candidates for the three most important “ideas” in human history: the soul, the idea of Europe, and the experiment. He doesn’t really explain why until the book’s conclusion, about 700 pages later. In short, the non-Western world — specifically, Islam, India, and China — were on the rise until about 1000 A.D.; Asia was dominant politically, technologically, and intellectually. But the period from 1050 to 1200 was a “hinge” during which Europe started rising. This time period — the era of the university, of Thomas Aquinas, of the spread of learning and the concepts of measurement and accuracy — was more consequential than the Renaissance. He contrasts Plato — who focused on the spiritual, incorporeal world, and on the idea of looking inward — with Aristotle — who focused on the real world, and preferred to look outward. The 11th and 12th centuries were the rise of Aristotelian thinking in the West, whereas the Renaissance is one of many inward-turnings throughout history, in the mode of Plato. Scientific discovery is cumulative — discoveries lead to other discoveries — whereas artistic accomplishments are not, and it is science that has led us to where we are today.
Toward the end of the book, Watson lashes out at Freud. Watson seems to hate him. He cites several authors to argue that Freud lied about much of his work and pulled his ideas out of nowhere. Watson says the idea of the unconscious is bunk, as is psychoanalysis, and that science is the only way we will eventually discover where consciousness and the concept of the “self” come from.
He is pro-science, anti-introspection. Read this very short interview to get a taste of his ideas. He seems kind of nutty — daydreaming and introspection don’t get you anywhere? Really?
But it’s a fascinating book.
He certainly does come across as a nutter. And, from your description of the premise of his book, a pretty crappy historian, too.
He also doesn’t seem to grasp that new ideas and insights and inventions are often arrived at by daydreaming and introspection over what has been empirically gathered from outside.