If I were to say “I don’t think the human experience has changed much because when I read Benjamin Franklin, I feel like I’m reading myself,” I’m implicitly assuming that Franklin and I have representative experiences for our times. My experience might be more typical now than Franklin’s was then; similarly, the Roman urbanite who reads very similarly to the American urbanite can mask the significant change in urbanization.
I’m implicitly assumes that Franklin and I have representative experiences for our times.
Well, kinda, but once you explicitly state this, the problems start to appear. Historical age is only one of many possible dimensions of differences between people. You start asking “representative of what?” Is your “human experience” closer to Ben Franklin’s or to a contemporary sheep herder’s in Mali?
Or consider a 2x2 table of four people: you, now; a Roman urbanite, say, around 0 A.D.; a sheep herder in West Africa now; and a sheep herder in West Africa around 0 A.D. How do similarities of experience play out?
Given that most ancients were illiterate, the ancients whose writings you’ve read aren’t an unbiased sample of all ancients.
I don’t think anyone made any claims about unbiased samples...
If I were to say “I don’t think the human experience has changed much because when I read Benjamin Franklin, I feel like I’m reading myself,” I’m implicitly assuming that Franklin and I have representative experiences for our times. My experience might be more typical now than Franklin’s was then; similarly, the Roman urbanite who reads very similarly to the American urbanite can mask the significant change in urbanization.
Well, kinda, but once you explicitly state this, the problems start to appear. Historical age is only one of many possible dimensions of differences between people. You start asking “representative of what?” Is your “human experience” closer to Ben Franklin’s or to a contemporary sheep herder’s in Mali?
Or consider a 2x2 table of four people: you, now; a Roman urbanite, say, around 0 A.D.; a sheep herder in West Africa now; and a sheep herder in West Africa around 0 A.D. How do similarities of experience play out?
Most people aren’t writers, period, so you’re never comparing the ancients to an unbiased sample of any population either.