A Book by Its First Page:  Stolen Legacy

      It is a terrible start when every major assertion on the first page of the introduction are wrong. For example, "The term Greek philosophy, to begin with is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence.  The ancient Egyptians had developed very complex religious system, called the Mysteries, which was the fist system of salvation."  First two lines are fundamentally wrong.  What was the works of Plato, Aristotle, Democratus, and Epicurus?  Do we not call Plato's works examples of philosophy even if he learnt it from Socrates?  Thus, even if the Greeks learnt philosophy from the Egyptians (which they didn't), there still would be Greek philosophy.  The works of Plato et al are recognized as philosophy and are taught by philosophy departments in universities.  James second error is that he fails to distinguish philosophy from religion.  Philosophy explains the nature of things without the recourse to gods.  Sentence two (quoted above), which I presume was to shed light upon the first sentence, states that the "Egyptians had developed a very complex religious system."  But religious systems are not philosophy, just as much as chemistry is not physics, though in spots they overlap.  What the Egyptians developed does not resemble Greek philosophy.  The Greek philosophers didn't rely on the gods to explain the nature of things.  None but the supporters of the religious-like glorification of Africans would make such a claim.  

      Paragraph two is fine, except it violates the principles for being a paragraph, unity and topic sentence.  But paragraph 3 changes accepted historically dates.  First Egypt as a nation didn't begin until about 3,500 BC; thus there could not be "five thousand years of prohibition against the Greeks."  Second James states that Greeks were permitted to enter Egypt following the Persian conquest in 525 BC.  Greek philosophy started about 600 BC with Thales, who it is recorded to have learnt astronomy from the Persians.  By 525 there were a number of Greek philosopher, fragments of their works have survived.  Most of the first philosophers resided in Miletus, the center of learning before Athens.  He continues in his error of not distinguishing philosophy from religion by saying that Egyptian priest taught visiting Greek students philosophy.  James is telling a story about Greek philosophy, one that ignores history.

The third paragraph also has many minor errors.  "From the sixth century B.C. therefore to the death of Aristotle (322 B.C.)  the Greeks made the best of their chance to learn all they could about Egyptian culture; most students received instructions directly from the Egyptian Priests, . . ."   However, the Greek student when to schools set up in Greek lands, and this is widely recorded.  Nowhere in his book does James produce references to support the exodus of Greek students.  The remainder of that sentence is equally in error:  but after the invasion by Alexander the Great, the Royal temples and libraries were plundered and pillaged, and Aristotle’s school converted the library at Alexandria into a research centre.  First, there is no record of their libraries being plundered.  Second Alexander’s school was in Athens.  Third, the library at Alexandria was not built until long after Aristotle’s death ("The Alexandrian museum and library were founded and maintained by the long succession of the Ptolemys in Egypt from the beginning of the 3rd century BC."--Encyclopedia Britannica).  And finally there was no Alexandria until Alexander built it, thus there was no pre-existing Egyptian library in that city.  The final sentence is wrong.  It states that Aristotle could not produce the number of books ascribed to him.  The source is Diogenes Laertius, who ascribes a similar number to nearly 2-dozen other philosophers--usually about 100-150 books.  First, the books were scrolls, thus much smaller than a modern book.  Modern writes have done more.  Isaac Asimov, who besides science fiction, wrote books on at least 20 other topic, and his total production was just shy of 400.  Mover what we have of Aristotle is not his works (they were all lost thanks to the Christians), but rather the student notes and possible lecture notes which probably his successors who headed Alexander’s school in Athens edited.  The third paragraph is sufficient for me to put down the book.