How do we know what earlier thinkers thought?

Three dates on one page

Imagine finding a notebook copied out in 1950. Its first page begins: “These are the words my grandmother spoke in 1880.” A note at the back says that the account was first written down in 1910.

That gives us three dates: when the grandmother is said to have spoken, when someone first wrote her account down, and when this copy was made. Even if all three are accurate, each tells us something different, and the copy on its own could not show whether her words had been reproduced exactly.

Older works raise the same questions on a larger scale. A text may present itself as the teaching of someone who lived long before its surviving copy was made. It may reach us in several versions. And behind a single page of English translation can lie centuries of copying and interpretation.

Evidence for which question?

What a source can tell us depends on the question we put to it. The notebook might reveal a great deal about what its copier wanted to preserve in 1950, and much less about the exact words spoken in 1880.

The Library of Congress’s guidance on primary sources asks readers to consider why a source was made, whom it addressed and the circumstances around it, and to compare it with other sources, since one document may not tell the whole story. [1] Being close to an event does not guarantee a reliable account of it.

An eyewitness may have missed the crucial moment, while a later researcher may have compared several witnesses. The first gives direct testimony; the second interprets evidence gathered from others. Calling their accounts “primary” and “secondary” describes that relationship, but it does not tell us which claim to trust.

A second distinction matters just as much. A text that praises obedience shows that its speaker or writer presents obedience as valuable; it does not show that obedience is always good. Understanding what a work says and deciding whether it is right are different tasks, even when we pursue them together.

Papyrus Prisse: the work and its surviving copy

Now for a real case. Papyrus Prisse, the handwritten manuscript behind our next reading, is catalogued by the Bibliothèque nationale de France as a Twelfth Dynasty manuscript. [2] That dates the surviving copy; the work copied into it may have been composed earlier.

Our sources disagree about when. UCL’s introduction separates the royal court in which the Teaching of Ptahhotep is set from the time the work was composed, and argues from its language and the manuscript evidence for composition in the Twelfth Dynasty. [3] The translator Miriam Lichtheim argues for an earlier date, late in the Sixth Dynasty, and treats the attribution to Ptahhotep as part of the work’s literary presentation rather than proof that the named teacher wrote it. [4]

The manuscript’s date does not settle that disagreement. Antonio Loprieno’s later foreword adds a further question: not only when such works were first composed, but when and how they were read. [5] A surviving copy can help answer that question without resolving the question of composition.

None of this stops us from reading the teaching. It stops us only from treating its sayings as the verified words of an official living at the time the story describes. What we have is a literary work preserved by copying, available in named English translations, with a scholarly disagreement about its date. That is enough to begin, provided we keep those limits in view.

Translation is an interpretation you can inspect

Suppose two translators render the same term, invented for this example, as “proper order” and “justice.” Each phrase steers your attention differently. The first suggests stability; the second may prompt you to ask whether a stable arrangement is fair. To judge between them you would need to examine the surrounding passage and the evidence about the original language. Liking one English word better isn’t enough.

That is why the course names the translations it uses, explains important original terms where they help us read, and marks the difference between what a passage supports and what we are proposing as an interpretation.

Three more words will save us confusion later. Comparison asks how ideas resemble or differ. Influence claims a historical connection. Sequence is simply the order of our lessons. Placing two works side by side in a course does not show that one influenced the other.

Pause and try

A page headed “A ruler’s teaching, 2400 BCE” survives only in a copy made much later. A reader concludes, “We now know exactly what this ruler said in 2400 BCE.” What further evidence would the reader need?

Read an explanatory answer

The reader needs evidence connecting the surviving words to that ruler and that date: when the account was first written down, and how it reached the surviving copy. The heading may be part of the story the text tells about itself, rather than proof of who spoke or wrote the words. None of this makes the later copy worthless; it simply cannot settle every question on its own.

An opening checkpoint

Each of these three lessons has given us a habit: separate the questions inside a dispute, examine how reasons support a conclusion, and ask what the evidence can actually tell us. Alongside “Do I agree?” we can now ask, “What is this work doing, and how do I know?” Next we put all three habits to work on an Egyptian teaching about listening and power.

Sources and limits

[1] Library of Congress, “Getting Started with Primary Sources”, introductory definition, “Before you begin,” “Promote student inquiry” and assessment guidance. All six substantive sections of the page were read directly; linked teaching materials were not reviewed. The notebook and witness cases are original examples.

[2] Bibliothèque nationale de France, Papyrus Prisse, Égyptien 183–194, catalogue identity and date fields. The catalogue assigns the manuscript to the Twelfth Dynasty and gives the range 1991–1785 BCE.

Other BnF descriptions give other approximate dates: about 1800 BCE in the caption accompanying “Fin de l’Enseignement pour Gemnikaï”, and about 1900 BCE in “Papyrus « Prisse »,” Rouge, item 115. They date the manuscript only approximately, and establish neither an exact year nor the date of composition. These descriptions were read directly; the audio was not reviewed. The reading guide describes the limited check made against images of the manuscript.

[3] UCL, “Teaching of Ptahhotep”, introduction. The composition date proposed there is UCL’s own argument; the course’s review of the sources does not establish a scholarly consensus or an exact year.

[4] Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, volume I, The Old and Middle Kingdoms, in the 2019 collected edition (University of California Press; volume I first published 1973).

• Attribution and dating: the section “Literary Genres and Literary Styles” (OEBPS/Volume1_Introduction2.xhtml#vol1_fm06, internal markers page36–page37).
• Dating of the Ptahhotep text: the opening discussion in “The Instruction of Ptahhotep” (OEBPS/Volume1_Part_01_Chapter_05.xhtml#head14).

These filenames and markers locate passages inside the EPUB edition; the page labels are not verified print-page numbers.

[5] Antonio Loprieno, “Foreword to the 2006 Edition,” in the same volume, especially its discussion of dating and of how such works were read (OEBPS/Volume1_Foreword.xhtml#vol1_fm04, internal markers page19–page29). The whole foreword and its notes were read. Written in 2005 for the 2006 edition, it does not survey present-day consensus, nor does it prove UCL’s precise date. No book or volume was read in full.