08-11-2018, 06:18 PM
JKP - For me, the 'argument' comes down, as it has done since 1912, to methods adopted and the aim of what is said and written.
I am only interested in what is demonstrably true - technically or in terms of historical studies pertinent to the manuscript's study. This eliminates (for me) any writings which fudge credits and attributions, which omit material for no reason except it fails to offer support from a fictional/hypothetical narrative, or which asserts where it should demonstrate the truth of some item or other.
The 'astrological' idea finds no support from the primary source so far as anyone has been able to demonstrate; by default, therefore, I do not accept it. I do not care for what is possible, probable, likely or 'plausible' - only for what may permit a true statement to be made about the manuscript and its content.
I accept that a majority may not see their task as I did mine, and also that many feel offended if one does not greet their assertions with enthusiasm, but from my point of view the aim is to correctly understand and describe the object and 'correctly' means as the original enunciators of text and image did.
As a physical object, the Vms itself offers traces of its origin and the evolution of its content. All made objects do. So as I see it there is no point in speculations and the invention of hypothetical narratives. What we have to do is apply to this manuscript the same method, and same body of specialist studies (codicology, palaeography, manuscript studies etc.) as persons do who provenance any other problematic manuscript.
So if there's nothing in the manuscript, or in the body of comparative studies, to justify calling these diagrams 'astrological' then I don't.
Just my policy; a matter of habit, perhaps.
I am only interested in what is demonstrably true - technically or in terms of historical studies pertinent to the manuscript's study. This eliminates (for me) any writings which fudge credits and attributions, which omit material for no reason except it fails to offer support from a fictional/hypothetical narrative, or which asserts where it should demonstrate the truth of some item or other.
The 'astrological' idea finds no support from the primary source so far as anyone has been able to demonstrate; by default, therefore, I do not accept it. I do not care for what is possible, probable, likely or 'plausible' - only for what may permit a true statement to be made about the manuscript and its content.
I accept that a majority may not see their task as I did mine, and also that many feel offended if one does not greet their assertions with enthusiasm, but from my point of view the aim is to correctly understand and describe the object and 'correctly' means as the original enunciators of text and image did.
As a physical object, the Vms itself offers traces of its origin and the evolution of its content. All made objects do. So as I see it there is no point in speculations and the invention of hypothetical narratives. What we have to do is apply to this manuscript the same method, and same body of specialist studies (codicology, palaeography, manuscript studies etc.) as persons do who provenance any other problematic manuscript.
So if there's nothing in the manuscript, or in the body of comparative studies, to justify calling these diagrams 'astrological' then I don't.
Just my policy; a matter of habit, perhaps.