Bill Cunningham (050993.1648EDT)
Fowarding a post from Lewis LaRue that was received directly, but evidently
didn't make it through the csg list server. Apologies to all for what
appears to be double header w/subject deletion caused by something in
my header. Any advice to clean that up certainly appreciated by all.
Bill C.
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Lewis LaRue (93.09.04 @ 10:20 EDT)
I introduced myself a few days ago as new to this group; let me make
my maiden intervention by responding to the posting set-out below.
Bill Cunningham (030993:1950)
>Hal Pepinsky ~030993.1450|Well, lacking Aristotelean rigor, Solomon didn't complete the full
test. He might have made the mother of all mistakes. But there is
no record of lengthy appeals and the historian who recorded the incident
obviously did so to propogate Solomon's reputation for wisdom. The incident
is quoted centuries later as evidence of great wisdom, without attempting to
explain the principle on which it is based.Moral: A good practical application aided by good press is more popular
than the underlying theoretical principles.
In responding to the Solomon story, one must first pick a
translation; I'll choose the King James, since it is traditional; but
all translations are flawed. For example, KJ says about the woman
who offered to give up the child, "for her bowels yearned upon her
son." But I am told by those who know Hebrew (I don't) that a more
literal translation would be "he womb stirred." But there is an
argument that the reference to "womb" is not meant to be literal, but
metaphorical. The argument is that "womb" is used as a metaphor for
compassion throughout the Hebrew testament. But in turn, the
argument for a metaphoral reading is also controversial, since it is
linked to issues about the gender of Jehovah (King James for Yahweh).
In scripture, Jehovah has "compassion", i.e., he has a "womb".
But leave translation aside. The story is interesting for the
differences in "perception" and "interpretation" that people bring to
it. (And of course, translation is also a question of perception and
interpretation, but I'm not competent to talk about translation.) So
let me make two comments about "perceptions" of this story; I want to
ask: "Why do people read the story the way they do?"
First comment: what is the point of the story? The textual unit ends
as follows (KJ version): "And all Israel heard of the judgment which
the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the
wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment." One possible
interpretation: the point of the whole exercise is to create fear; we
have here an example of what we moderns call "state terrorism."
Solomon used the two women as a convenient way to create fear in the
populace. (And it worked.)
The reading I have just given is plausible, but it is not the one you
were taught. And even if you weren't taught any particular reading,
it is not the one you might leap to first. (Although I can identify
a class of reader for whom such a reading is quite natural.)
First query to the group: would you describe this as controlling your
perception of the story so as to bring it into adjustment with the
reference signals your culture has given you about the pious
righteousness of scripture?
Second comment: who was the birth mother? The two women are
described as The One Woman and The Other Woman. (I have capitalized;
and as you know, the original manuscripts do not draw a distinction
between upper case and lower case letters.) The case is One v.
Other; Other has custody of a live child; One is suing to have
custody transfered on the ground that she is the birth mother.
Please focus on the following excerpt from the record, in which One
speaks as follows: "And this woman's :The Other Woman's: child died in
the night; because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight, and
took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it
in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom." How do you
interpret this passage. Most people seem to interpret it as saying
One is saying that she was asleep both when Other overlaid the child
and when Other made the switch. So interpreted, what inferences do
you make?
How about the following: if One was asleep, she couldn't have know;
so she said she knew what she couldn't have known; so she lied.
Suppose that we have other reasons for believing that the baby boy in
fact died of suffocation. So one was correct in saying that the baby
was overlaid. But she lied when said that she knew that Other did
it. So One must have overlaid the baby, and thus, she overlaid her
own baby, and is now trying to undo her fault by claiming Other's
baby.
Why don't people draw this inference? Is it because One, who was
willing to give up the child, is "good", whereas Other, who was
willing to have the child cut in half, is "bad", and good peole don't
tell lies? A bad principle, and also one that applies poorly to this
case, since it presupposes what is at issue. Why was One willing to
give up the child? She knew she was guilty. Was was Other willing
to see it die? She was driven mad by rage and by the king's cruelty.
Second query to this group: can we talk about an "inference" as just
another "perception"? And if so, do the comments under the first
query carry foreward to this second query?
I hope that my discussion of King Solomon's judgment has some
interest, but I also hope that it is a concrete example of the kind
of problem that I am interested in, i.e., how do people draw
conclusions from complex masses of evidence, and how can they do so
better? I hope that PCT might help me think through some of the
issues.
Best wishes,
Lewis Henry LaRue
Washington and Lee University
School of Law
Lexington, VA 24450
e-mail address: LHL@FS.LAW.WLU.EDU
telephone: 703-463-8513