One of the more intriguing chapters is "The Death of Oracles." Wood argues persuasively that the practice of consulting oracles began to die with the rise of Christianity. Plutarch made this argument first in The Obsolescence of Oracles in which he argued that the gods had abandoned the oracles. Where there had been three pythias at Delphi, now there was only one. In "Paradise Lost" Milton says that the old oracles were struck dumb at the birth of Christ and will be replaced by a "new oracle of truth." "Henceforth oracles are ceased," at least in their traditional form. Christ and the Holy Ghost are the new oracles. These, of course, are oracles with divine infallibility, not with ambiguity, further separating them from the traditional role. In an interview on "Book Talk" on Radio National, Wood stated, "I think Christianity is what happened to oracles, it went inward, we acquired conscience, an internalised conscience rather than the external oracle." He goes on to say, "So by 300 or 400 AD none of these oracles were functioning in a really institutional way. After that, there are many forms of oracle but I do think there's a difference in the life and the afterlife; …
We find that now in Tibet, you find it among Native Americans, you find it in places in Africa…."
Then, chapter 9, "Vestiges," reveals a change in Wood. The elegance and close reasoning escapes him in his discussions of Kafka's works ("Is it the god whispering or only the rustle of the trees? Kafka is afraid it is just the trees but has to write as if it were the god.") and Ludwig Wittenstein's On Certainty, an ironic title for a discussion on a lack of certainty. Wood's arguments seem to be so much grasping at straws. He tries to bring movies such as The Matrix, Groundhog Day, and The Truman Show into the mix to show "that reality is not what or where we think it is…." This discussion itself seems a break with the reality developed earlier and seems just a philosophical exercise in "language games," a casting of the runes to see what comes out.
Wood recovers substantially in a chapter on "Medicine and Probability." He argues that "our interpretations of their interpretations [diagnoses] frequently make them look very much like oracles in precisely the sense that the ancient world understood the institution. That is, we can't afford not to believe them and we don't quite know what they mean."
Then, chapter 9, "Vestiges," reveals a change in Wood. The elegance and close reasoning escapes him in his discussions of Kafka's works ("Is it the god whispering or only the rustle of the trees? Kafka is afraid it is just the trees but has to write as if it were the god.") and Ludwig Wittenstein's On Certainty, an ironic title for a discussion on a lack of certainty. Wood's arguments seem to be so much grasping at straws. He tries to bring movies such as The Matrix, Groundhog Day, and The Truman Show into the mix to show "that reality is not what or where we think it is…." This discussion itself seems a break with the reality developed earlier and seems just a philosophical exercise in "language games," a casting of the runes to see what comes out.
Wood recovers substantially in a chapter on "Medicine and Probability." He argues that "our interpretations of their interpretations [diagnoses] frequently make them look very much like oracles in precisely the sense that the ancient world understood the institution. That is, we can't afford not to believe them and we don't quite know what they mean."
An obstetrician of our acquaintance always predicted the sex of the coming baby some years ago. He would tell the mother-to-be it was to be a boy, and I'll write it down and put it in your record. If it turned out to be a boy, no problem. If it turned out to be a girl, no problem either. He'd pull out the paper, where he had written "girl" months ago and say, "See, I told you so." The oracle was always right.
In the doctor all the elements of an oracle are present: "the consultation, the voice of authority, the need for interpretation, the entailment of a future." The one difference is that today we often have a "deep or radical doubt." The ancients never disbelieved the existence of the god; we do. In the extended discussion, Wood notes that "the most important of current oracles in the West is surely the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Bank." Consider these words associated with the financial markets: futures, hedging, uncertainty, caution, fear.
In the doctor all the elements of an oracle are present: "the consultation, the voice of authority, the need for interpretation, the entailment of a future." The one difference is that today we often have a "deep or radical doubt." The ancients never disbelieved the existence of the god; we do. In the extended discussion, Wood notes that "the most important of current oracles in the West is surely the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Bank." Consider these words associated with the financial markets: futures, hedging, uncertainty, caution, fear.
Let me give Wood the last word: "All things are full of gods, even if the gods keep changing their disguises. The gods appear whenever we think we know more than a human creature ordinarily could, and they disappear again when we turn to ask them what to do."
