I've been mumbling "null hypothesis" and "vague hierarchy" to myself for months, so, inasmuch as Dummett didn't say very much, I don't know what difference there would be between his explanation, had he cared to offer a more detailed one, and mine, which I am writing up.mjhurst wrote: Finally, as you have stated it here, your view sounds exactly like that put forward by Michael Dummett. Would you care to make any distinction between his position and yours?
As you know, "null hypothesis" is jargon for "default position" in scientific testing. It has nothing to do with the content of the hypothesis; only with its status as the position being tested and, in many cases, the accepted paradigm or conventional wisdom.Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:I've been mumbling "null hypothesis" and "vague hierarchy" to myself for months, so, inasmuch as Dummett didn't say very much, I don't know what difference there would be between his explanation, had he cared to offer a more detailed one, and mine, which I am writing up.
He, of course, only ever called his idea of the trumps a "vague hierarchy", which I find a little more attractive than the word "null", which makes it sound completely random.
mjhurst wrote: As you know, "null hypothesis" is jargon for "default position" in scientific testing. It has nothing to do with the content of the hypothesis; only with its status as the position being tested and, in many cases, the accepted paradigm or conventional wisdom.
In this particular case, the null hypothesis is also the simplest useful explanation, the most factually conservative and parsimonious.
Ah, yes... "The Tarot Myth", by John Berry. (The Playing Card, vol. 32, no. 6, May-June 2004.)Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:mjhurst wrote:As you know, "null hypothesis" is jargon for "default position" in scientific testing. It has nothing to do with the content of the hypothesis; only with its status as the position being tested and, in many cases, the accepted paradigm or conventional wisdom. In this particular case, the null hypothesis is also the simplest useful explanation, the most factually conservative and parsimonious.
Indeed, Dummett never flatly theorized that there was "no meaning", unlike bolder folks like that guy whose name I can't remember (John... Morris? somebody...) who wrote an article in the Playing Card saying exactly that.
I did not, of course, use the ground, sky, and wall as part of my analysis of why the Gemini were added to the card. Whether details there are meaningful can be discussed in relation to specific contexts. But I didn't see anything astrological there, except of course the sun. The type of book that Marco linked to seems to offer a good explanation of the wall, as part of the image copied onto the card. It also seems to support the idea that what we see on the lower half of the card is indeed derived from astrology.In the pervasively-occultist environment of a Tarot discussion, every feature must be hyper-interpreted, so it is difficult to let go of something. However, things like ground, sky, and a wall, may not be secret codes but merely conventional backdrops
Game of Tarot (Duckworth, 1980), especially chapter 20, "The Order of the Tarot Trumps".mikeh wrote: Michael or Ross, I would appreciate knowing where I can read Dummett on the "null hypothesis". I need to see the context. My conception of Dummett is that he took as his subject how the images functioned in playing a trick-taking game. I would be interested in seeing in what way he applies the concept of the null hypothesis to reject other uses of the cards, even uses applied while playing the game. I am thinking of didactic and mnemonic uses not part of Christianity other than a literal reading of the Book of Revelation. So please give me a page reference, and I will try to get the source and read it.
Obviously, he didn't call his own views the null hypothesis, or the default position, or conventional wisdom, status quo anti, existing paradigm, or anything of the sort. When he was writing The Game of Tarot, his history of Tarot was necessarily the "alternative hypothesis", a new set of conclusions which were intended to replace the existing paradigm. The null hypothesis re Tarot history and iconography in 1980, to the extent that there was any consensus at that time, involved the scattered findings and conclusions of playing-card historians, including Arthur Waite, Gertrude Moakley, and some 19th-century writers following Paul Lacroix. The playing-card historians were significantly influenced by the earlier occultists, and Waite, despite his skepticism, was also an occultist.Howard wrote:I would appreciate knowing where I can read Dummett on the "null hypothesis".
Wow -- so, in other words, you know nothing about Dummett's writings?Howard wrote:My conception of Dummett is that he took as his subject how the images functioned in playing a trick-taking game.
You might want to check out the link I provided as a first step. As pointed out above, Dummett would not and could not treat his own work as the null hypothesis. His studies created a "paradigm shift", from an earlier conventional wisdom to one based on The Game of Tarot. When he was publishing it, his view was not the null hypothesis, but the "alternative hypothesis".Howard wrote:I would be interested in seeing in what way he applies the concept of the null hypothesis to reject other uses of the cards, even uses applied while playing the game.
Please give us a documented example of these "didactic and mnemonic uses" you allude to. I am aware of a great many imaginary examples, from the long history of traditional occult Tarot and modern, New Age Tarot, but that was all based on fantasy. In terms of the actual history of Tarot and how the images were seen, Ross provided a summary of some pre-occultist interpretations, which Marco linked to yesterday.Howard wrote:I am thinking of didactic and mnemonic uses not part of Christianity as interpreted by Aquinas (i.e., for this card, interpretations in terms other than those of a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation, which then was acknowledged by all). So please give me a page reference, and I will try to get the source and read it.
A null hypothesis is a conclusion, while parsimony is a methodological guideline. It is inane to equate them.Howard wrote:If the null hypothesis is the same as parsimony or simplest explanation, or Occam's razor, then there are problems.
Parsimony is used by everyone, even in daily life. Every time someone prefers the obvious over the far-fetched, they are employing Ockham's Razor. The fact that you don't see it is hardly surprising, as you are usually inclined to reject the obvious in favor of the more interesting but more far-fetched. You are one of the many, travelling the Wide Gate along with occultists of every sort, conspiracy theorists, proponents of all manner of folklore and urban legends, and so on. As one of the many, it is quite natural for you to reject simple and objectively supported conclusions.Howard wrote:I do not see History as one of the disciplines to which Occam's Razor is used--or even discussed--at least on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor. Nor do I see it applied by most art historians and literary critics when discussing how art and literature were made and seen during the Renaissance.
But, you are one of those people, building on that folklore. You are directly in the group that began in the 1970s with Jungian and New Age credentials. (These associations, and especially their labels, are now often denied by the more sophisticated members. They are problematic because they sound exactly like what they are.) As an example, since you mentioned Levi, wasn't he the writer most responsible for bringing alchemy into the world of Tarot interpretations? Your own attempts to convert Stoic-Christian Tarot (the basest of exoteric materials) into esoteric alchemical gold are precisely in that tradition.Howard wrote:I am not, nor have I ever been an occultist, in the sense of someone attracted to the interpretations of the tarot by Levi and those building on him. I resent being painted with that brush.
Since you are not willing to quote the passage which you claim as support, I will. It is worth quoting, and it begins on page 33:Howard wrote:As to whether "hidden meanings" ("occult" in that sense) are relevant to an appreciation of this material, I think there is general agreement among scholars that they are; it is even said in Wicked Pack of Cards (p. 34).
Now we see why you would not quote the passage: it is the opposite of agreement with your position. It is a well-reasoned and fact-based rejection of your position. They say "yes", a priori it seems possible; but they conclude "no", in light of the facts it makes no sense.WPC wrote:As already remarked, these conclusions do not rule it out that the subjects, the designs and the sequential order of the trump cards were originally endowed with some esoteric meaning. There is no questioning the symbolic character of the images on the Tarot trumps: if you represent the virtue of justice as a woman holding a sword and a pair of scales, you are making heavy use of symbolism. This is exoteric symbolism. It happens to be an instance in which the symbolism has remained familiar to us; but symbolism embodied in others of the Tarot trumps would have been equally familiar to Italians of the Renaissance. The only question open to dispute is whether there is esoteric symbolism as well: symbolism intelligible only to those instructed in astrology or other arcane subjects. It is intrinsically plausible that there should have been such symbolism in a special pack of cards invented at that time and in that milieu. People of the Renaissance reveled in hidden symbolism, and the occult sciences enjoyed greater prestige in the Christian world than at any other time before or since.
Any theory to this effect must pass a severe test, however. It must depend not on any direct evidence that can be cited, but on the intrinsic plausibility of the particular interpretation proposed, which must draw on nothing that was not available at that time and place. But it out not to be too plausible; it cannot be anything which, if present, would leap to the eye of a man of the Renaissance looking at the cards. The reason is that, if the trump sequence was designed in accordance with any esoteric symbolism, this fact was very quickly and very generally overlooked. None of the XV- and XVI-century sources so much as hints as such a thing; and the absence of such a hint from some of these sources would be very surprising if their authors had any inkling that any such symbolism was there to be found. This applies to the sermon in which Tarot, together with other card and dice games, was denounced as an invention of the devil; the preacher would not have lost such an opportunity to reinforce his point. It applies equally to Lollio's Invettiva, in which both the game and the cards are ridiculed; the poet, likewise, would not have lost so good an opportunity to ridicule the cards still further, instead of saying somewhat lamely that their inventor must have been drunk.
Virtually everything written about Tarot is influenced by the occultists. That is one reason why it is important to repeatedly contrast fact-based conclusions with the 99% of folklore-based speculation. The main exception to that esoteric influence is some of what is written about the game itself, but today there are plenty of occult apologists who include aspects of the game in their fables.Howard wrote:I suppose that some of what I have read about tarot was by people influenced by the occultists. Sometimes these sources, and even the occultists themselves, have ideas worth considering. I do try to read these things critically.
The reason I cited p. 34 is that it is there that the book talks about "hidden symbolism" as a fact about the Renaissance. That was all I cited it for. However I do want to respond to what Michael said about it, and me:As already remarked, these conclusions do not rule it out that the subjects, the designs and the sequential order of the trump cards were originally endowed with some esoteric meaning. There is no questioning the symbolic character of the images on the Tarot trumps: if you represent the virtue of justice as a woman holding a sword and a pair of scales, you are making heavy use of symbolism. This is exoteric symbolism. It happens to be an instance in which the symbolism has remained familiar to us; but symbolism embodied in others of the Tarot trumps would have been equally familiar to Italians of the Renaissance. The only question open to dispute is whether there is esoteric symbolism as well: symbolism intelligible only to those instructed in astrology or other arcane subjects. It is intrinsically plausible that there should have been such symbolism in a special pack of cards invented at that time and in that milieu. People of the Renaissance reveled in hidden symbolism, and the occult sciences enjoyed greater prestige in the Christian world than at any other time before or since.
Any theory to this effect must pass a severe test, however. It must depend not on any direct evidence that can be cited, but on the intrinsic plausibility of the particular interpretation proposed, which must draw on nothing that was not available at that time and place. But it out not to be too plausible; it cannot be anything which, if present, would leap to the eye of a man of the Renaissance looking at the cards. The reason is that, if the trump sequence was designed in accordance with any esoteric symbolism, this fact was very quickly and very generally overlooked. None of the XV- and XVI-century sources so much as hints as such a thing; and the absence of such a hint from some of these sources would be very surprising if their authors had any inkling that any such symbolism was there to be found. This applies to the sermon in which Tarot, together with other card and dice games, was denounced as an invention of the devil; the preacher would not have lost such an opportunity to reinforce his point. It applies equally to Lollio's Invettiva, in which both the game and the cards are ridiculed; the poet, likewise, would not have lost so good an opportunity to ridicule the cards still further, instead of saying somewhat lamely that their inventor must have been drunk.
As I read the passage from Wicked Pack, it doesn't come to any conclusion at all. It is a compromise statement that all three of the authors can agree on. One co-author, Decker, as is clear from his most recent book, would have meant it as a challenge to find just such hidden symbolism (although not intending to satisfy the criteria that you propose, which are not in the passage from Wicked Pack that I can find, and not ones Decker would have agreed were valid). Even in 1980 Decker had a propensity to propound hidden symbolism, judging from Dummett's comment on p. 387 of Game of Tarot that "Mr. Ronald Decker has engaged in complicated speculations, linking the pack to the astrology of the time". In fact in The Esoteric Tarot Decker uses Lollio as an example of how the hidden meanings of the trump sequence had been lost by his time (pp. 87-88):Now we see why you would not quote the passage: it is the opposite of agreement with your position. It is a well-reasoned and fact-based rejection of your position. They say "yes", a priori it seems possible; but they conclude "no", in light of the facts it makes no sense.
Moreover, they propose a test which -- given the historical facts -- is almost certainly impossible for any theory to pass. A theory of esoteric meaning must simultaneously be intrinsically plausible, a clear and persuasive reading of the subjects, and also be something which a typical Renaissance audience would overlook. It must be in some way overwhelmingly convincing, otherwise we have simpler, more objectively reasonable explanations, and yet the fact is that no one recognized this great esoteric design, this intended meaning of the trumps, prior to 2013.
Actually, it is not clear to me that Lollio really dislikes the tarot as much as he makes out. Dummett near the beginning of Chapter 20 cites him as straightforwardly declaring that the sequence makes no sense; later he comments that his diatribe "was obviously less than half serious" (p. 412r). If so, how can we trust that he really doesn't have any idea what the cards mean? His statement may just be a piece of rhetoric making fun of something that he actually loves and perhaps even something whose meaning he hopes people will think about. If he really started explaining what he thought the cards meant, the mood would change to one of high seriousness, even if what he thought was only something like what Michael says it was.The Tarot survived among card players, and their traditionalism kept the imagery intact. But they knew nothing of secret symbolism. As I said, they were annoyed at the presumed nonsense.
He mentions the occultists in this regard, and that their speculations have been based on the Tarot de Marseille. He continues (387l):Many people, however, have been fascinated by the figures on the trump cards of the Latin-suited Tarot pack, and have sought to uncover a hidden symbolism lost to us. They have been convinced that these figures must have a deeper meaning than appears on the surface, and, in particular, they have believed that there is a significance, not only in the individual cards, but in the precise order in which they are arranged.
That is because the earliest pack with that order is 1557 (387r). I would add here: Even today we have no confirmation of that order before 1444, in Alciato.If we are seeking the symbolic intentions of those who first designed the Tarot peck, the Tarot de Marseille is a dubious guide.
The last sentence in the above above is indeed a rather bald statement of the "null hypothesis", so to speak. (Thanks,Michael, for clarifying what you meant, that it is a conclusion. I thought I'd learned in school that it was a kind of benchmark to compare results of an experiment against, so as to see whether they were significant, and so not a conclusion but a methodology. But I see on Wikipedia that there are other senses of the word than what I remembered.) It is Dummett's conclusion as regards the sequence as "originally intended", that there is no symbolic significance in the arrangement of the subjects. They are the 15th century equivalent of animal-cards, done to provide a new kind of pack with 21 cards playing a new role in the game:I am not going to advance another such theory. I do not want to take a stand about the theories that have been advanced. The question is whether a theory is needed at all. I do not mean to deny that some of the subjects or some of the details of their conventional representation, may have had a symbolic significance obvious to fifteenth-century Italians, or, at least, to educated ones, that escapes us and may be revealed by patient research; that is very likely to be the case. But the question is whether the sequence as a sequence has any special symbolic meaning. I am inclined to think that it did not: to think, that is, that those who originally designed the Tarot pack were doing the equivalent, for their day, of those who later selected a sequence of animal pictures to adorn the trump cards of the new French-suited pack.
e.g., he says, not all seven virtues, but just three, and not all seven planets, but just the Sun, Moon, and a Star. And not other ranks, but just Pope and Emperor. He adds (388l)...so they selected for those cards a number of subjects, most of them entirely familiar, that would naturally come to the mind of someone in a fifteenth-century Italian court. It is rather a random selection...
It is this last sentence that I was remembering when I saidBut, of course, in a pack of cards what is essential is that each card may be instantly identified, so one does not want a large number of rather similar figures, especially before it occurred to anyone to put numerals on the trump cards for ease of identification.
Yes, that was clumsily expressed (I didn't know what "trolling" was until I looked it up on the Internet; it's not very nice, not something I would waste people's time doing). I meant that for Dummett what was most important, in relation to his conclusions, was the cards' use in a trick-taking game. That was his main focus in the book. That's why it's called Game of Tarot, a worthy focus, since most people didn't even know it was a game. That focus on what is needed to play the game, the feature of "instant recognition", may lead Dummett to miss things when it comes to the symbolism in the trumps deriving from other functions of the cards, inside and outside the game. So I wanted to see what he said.Michael or Ross, I would appreciate knowing where I can read Dummett on the "null hypothesis". I need to see the context. My conception of Dummett is that he took as his subject how the images functioned in playing a trick-taking game. I would be interested in seeing in what way he applies the concept of the null hypothesis to reject other uses of the cards, even uses applied while playing the game.
It seems to me that it is not the subjects themselves that need explaining, but the particular combinations of conventionally symbolic details on the cards, in relation to the card as a whole and the sequence itself, in whole or in part: e.g. the Pope's tiara on a woman in a nun's dress, the scenes on the bottom halves of the Cary Sheet Star, Moon, and Sun, the the blindfold on Cupid in the Love card, the wings on the horses of the PMB Chariot, etc., mostly related to the Milan-based cards. Some of these things Ross calls "decorative"; but in fact are conventionally symbolic, others by their natural function or appearance lend themselves to symbolic interpretation, in the way that Dante and Petrarch had demonstrated in their interpretive works.most of the subjects on the Tarot trumps are completely standard ones in medieval and Renaissance art; there seems to be no need of any special hypothesis to explain them.
Here he must mean the added trumps, not the ones it has in common with the tarot, i.e. "the four elements, the remaining virtues, the signs of the zodiac", inserted "en bloc in a convenient place". It's true that people have focused on the tarot. The Minchiate, I'd say, is a variation on the tarot; its departures indeed look random, with Prudence stuck between Hope and Faith and its bizarre ordering of elements and zodiac signs. But otherwise it corresponds to a combination of A, with differences regarding the Papal/Imperial subjects, and the CY theological virtues. The reason it isn't talked about is that the issues would be much the same as for the tarot, from which it is derived.I do not think that anyone has suggested that there is any hidden significance in the sequence of Minchiate trumps.
He then gives the now-familiar example in literature of Lollio making no sense of the arrangement of the cards, which for Dummett shows that there was no generally acknowledged...particular interpretation to be placed on them", i.e. the cards (p. 388r). Later in the chapter he gives examples which show none but the most obvious meanings of the trumps.That is my opinion; but I do not want to insist on it. It may be that those who first designed the Tarot pack had a special purpose in mind in selecting those particular subjects and in arranging them in the order that they did: perhaps they then spelled out, to those capable of reading them, some satirical or symbolic message. If so, the capacity to read this message had been lost.
But he thinks that in that case we could not expect any ordering of the standard set to make perfect sense, because we wouldn't know the original trumps and order. I do not fully understand his argument, but my guess is that the reason is something he says on p. 388r:But it is also possible that the Visconti di Madrone pack represents the original form of the Tarot pack, and that the 78-card pack as we know is the result of a modification adopted early in its history.
That may be why he makes the point as he does on p. 415. Again, I do not see why it is necessary to find some original arrangement, as long as we have an approximation of what the order was in whatever deck or document we are examining. It seems to me that, given the various uncertainties, what Dummett gets in the end is just that.The search for a hidden meaning may be a unicorn hunt; but, if there is a hidden meaning to be found, only a correct basis of fact will lead us to it. The hidden meaning, if any, lies in the sequential arrangement of the trump cards; and therefore, if it is to be uncovered, we must know what, originally, that arrangement was.
What the variations strongly suggest is that there never was any great symbolic significance to the variations in the precise order in which the trump subjects were arranged..
He adds that this obviously does not apply to hand-painted decks and to non-standard decks like the Sola-Busca. Whether the variations might have to do with different symbolic approaches being applied in different places isn't something he pursues.The variations in design that we can observe amongst surviving cards are to be explained in the same way as those between different orders of the trump sequences, namely as representing different patterns used by different regions.
Moreover, he makes it clear that it is not gods that these cards refer to, but actual human beings later deified by their people. In the case of Boiardo, it is similar: there are specific individuals, legendary or real, and specific moral lessons each card conveys (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Boiardo).Consider therefore this game, most illustrious Duke, following a fourfold order, by which you may give attention to serious and important things, if you play at it. Sometimes it is pleasing to be thus diverted, and you will be delighted therein. And it is more pleasing, since through the keenness of your own acumen you dedicated several to be noted and celebrated Heroes, renowned models of virtue, whom mighty greatness made gods, as well as to ensure their remembrance by posterity. Thus by observation of them, be ready to be aroused to virtue.
The present editor's footnote explains that Melito is a character in Plato's ApologyBut since Nature does not allow changes that are too quick, nor that one moves from one extreme to the other without the due mean, before ascending to celestial things as the extreme end of earthly things he places examples of Demons: because, as Melito said answering Socrates' question, they are sons of the Gods but are neither earthly nor celestial. It has been the opinion of many, in particular the Platonists, that the Demons are Spirits that are in the air & that they are somehow in the middle between Gods and men.
You can read this passage at http://plato.classicauthors.net/Apology/Apology3.html, at the bottom of the page.A reference to Plato's dialogue "The Apology of Socrates": Socrates: Now what are spirits or demigods? are they not either gods or the sons of gods? Is that true? - Meletus: Yes, that is true.
I have used Michael Joyce's translation. Unfortunately the Jowett translation online is hopeless here; a fairly good if not very artful version is at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ion%3D202eThey are the envoys and interpreters that ply between heaven and earth, flying upward with our worship and our prayers, and descending with the heavenly answers and commandments, and since they are between the two estates they weld both sides together and merge them into one great whole.
This is again a philosophical interpretation. Oddly, Piscina does not moralize either of these cards. "Demoni" perhaps implies "evil demons", Piscina does not say anything one way or the other. Nor does he moralize the Fire card; it is simply a natural phenomenon.After the Demons, comes Fire, as the due mean between the stars, that are celestial, and mundane things: it is, as affirmed by Naturalists or Philosophers, the [20] element that is found before the Moon, the Sun and any other Star.
Apuleius later talks about the different types of daemones, of which many are the souls of human beings after death. Among them (p. 207):Not to continue further with more of them;, the poets have the habit, one not far from the truth, of presenting some of this group of what one might call daemones, who love or loathe certain humans, as gods--some as bringing prosperity and elevation, others as bringing adversity and affliction...
Another example of a Platonic interpretation is in Piscina's analysis of the Love card (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Piscina_Discorso_3)...the type which from its bad behavior in life, is punished by having no fixed abode, and by a kind of exile of uncertain wandering, only a mild terror for virtuous humans, but harmful to the evil--that type most people call Larvae
Here the Editor appropriately refers to Plato's Symposium, in a moralizing context. Piscina does not talk about Plato's "celestial love", which seems to me suggested if the Cupid on the card is blindfolded, as I have explained at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=974. The possible significance of the Symposium for the whole sequence (see my post at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=974&start=20#p14302) escapes him, of course, since he likely is only going by hearsay.Since Justice wins, surpasses & governs Love, that often takes men out of the way of reason, we say that here it is painted in its vulgar form because affection [14] maybe could not be represented in any better way than in the image of Cupid, because, according to the Platonists, vulgar love^ is but an unbounded Appetite, and sometimes an unreasonable desire to obtain something for which we have affection.
I am not sure that this doctrine is astrological, as opposed to part of what was called "natural philosophy", but it is significant that Piscina does consider astrology relevant to an interpretation of the cards here.Finally, in conclusion, we can say that the Sun is more powerful than the Moon and wins on it because it is placed in an higher sky than the Moon, which according to the Astrologers is in the lowest sky, while the Sun is in the fourth.
So, before the image of Paradise, he made a portrait of these four Evangelists, intended and signified by the four symbols, Angel, Ox, [22] Eagle and Lion, who represent those four most Famous and Holy Pillars of the sweet and infallible faith in Jesus Christ.
Hello Mike,mikeh wrote: WHAT DUMMETT LEAVES OUT
I see reasons for thinking that there were purposes for the tarot sequence that Dummett does not consider, i.e. didactic and mnemonic (remembering what one has learned). Dummett says it just didn't "occur" to the designers to put numbers on the card. To me it seems the first thing that would occur to someone, because there were numbers on other cards, and after all, it was a trick taking game. It seems to me more likely a deliberate choice not to put numbers on the cards, so that people would have to memorize the order. That's an argument for a didactic purpose for the game.
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