Varieties of Thought Volume I

Varieties of Thought

Attempt at a Tamrielic History of Ideas

Volume I -- The Discovery of Reason

by Maelix Pallania

Varieties of Thought

Attempt at a Tamrielic History of Ideas

Volume I -- The Discovery of Reason

by Maelix Pallania

Any contemporary scholar would undoubtedly admit that in no past era, human thought has reached the heights that it has in our days. The theoretical knowledge and practical realizations that have been achieved thanks to modern science have allowed the citizens of the Empire to live in an era of prosperity and enlightenment that knows no match since the days of the Dawn. Because of this, we often are quick to dismiss the philosophical inquiries and scientific realizations of eons past as obsolete. The scholar studying the history of human thought is commonly perceived as a crone pouring over old grimoires, in search of ancient wisdom or arcane power.

However, contemporary science is but the result of a millenary process. The most basic rational tools we use to understand and transform our surroundings were slowly built by our predecessors, with facts snatched from the tangled, chaotic fabric that constitutes the Mundus. My only pretense with the present work is to trace back our philosophical roots, as I believe no way forward can be charted without the knowledge of whence we came.

Philosophy's original figures are Altmeri gods like Xarxes, Oghma and Phynaster, as the High Elves conveniently believe that the texts foundational to their worldview were authored by the et'Ada themselves. As unlikely -- and indemonstrable -- this claim is, we must nonetheless take these figures seriously, as their so-called works indeed form the basis of Aldmeri philosophy, whose formal brilliance has set human thought on the path of never-ending progress it still follows to this day.

Scribe of Auri-El in the High Elven tradition, Xarxes is revered as the inventor of writing as well as history, instruction, administration, and genealogy. Record keeper of the Dawn Era, he is the author of the 'Xarxean Cycle', a series of books written in ancient Aldmeris, only legible by a handful of symbologicians, who provide a digested, simplified translation to priests and scholars in the Summerset Isles. Of note is that, as for the mythical 'Oghma Infinium', the very existence of the original 'Xarxean Cycle' is currently unconfirmed by Imperial academia. Even its translations only reached our universities in the early Third Era, and the reclusive and endocentric Altmer are reluctant to provide commentaries to help our understanding of these ancient texts.

The latest known versions of the cycle are divided in four tomes: the 'Book of War', chronicling the War of Manifest Metaphors; the 'Book of Seas and Stars', detailing the journeys of Torinaan on the seas, and of Magnus through Oblivion; the 'Book of Paradise', recounting the settlement of Summerset and the early Aldmeri politics until Xarxes' apotheosis in the early-middle Merethic; and finally, the 'Book of Law', a collection of proverbs, psalms, social codes and early genealogy from the Aedra to early Aldmer nobility.

Oghma is Xarxes' consort. Her attributes are aesthetics, astronomy and mathematics. In most Elven traditions, mortals learned mathematics through observation of heavenly bodies; as the gods ascended to the skies, it is through the practice of arithmetic that the scholar anticipates the movements of planets and stars, thus attuning their soul to that of the Aedra. To an Aldmer, there is no difference between knowledge and belief, worship and scientific praxis -- an ethos oddly close to that of the Redguards, as we will see later.

The final mythical Aldmeri philosopher, Phynaster's domain covers medicine and biology. More of a practical mind, the only work attributed to his name are 'Phynaster's Proverbs', a collection of maxims and pieces of advice to cultivate one's body and mind. On Summerset, exegesis of his alleged work tend to apply this hygienist approach to politics; Society is a body where the wise are the mind, laborers the limbs, and merchantry the stomach. In a healthy body, the mind commands the limbs, and regulates the stomach's desires -- if the merchant's appetites for profit and pleasure take over, then society corrupts. This simplistic approach to social science is still prevalent in most Elven societies today, which explains some of the archaic policies that we observe in Summerset, Valenwood and Morrowind, several centuries after being exposed to the benefits of free enterprise.

However, Phynaster's best-known feat is to have taught the Aldmer how to lengthen their life by lengthening their strides. As Elven lifespans seem to have regressed over the millennia, this event is probably to be taken metaphorically rather than literally. Fourth century savant Madlomar -- rare Altmer who have been able to assimilate into the broader Tamrielic culture brought about by the Third Empire -- suggested that lengthening the strides meant minimizing the drift in homogeneity between generations, and thus mitigating the entropic decay of the divine that results from creation -- Lorkhan's trickery.

Phynaster allegedly reached apotheosis in the early-middle Merethic, and as each generation was more removed from the divine than the last, his legacy on Summerset has been more and more about perpetuation of whatever divine spark remained in Altmeri blood through eugenics. Science increasingly became the study of the founders' work, rather than the use of their methods to study reality itself. The way human thought escaped this dead end is the object of the next volume.