ABSTRACT
Each Muse in ancient Greek mythology was a patron of a traditional discipline, e.g., Urania for astronomy, and Melpomene for tragedy. Ancient Greeks held contests periodically in the Muses’ disciplines to honor them, analogous to the athletic Olympics. The winner in a discipline had to be true-to the rules of it, e.g., the winner in astronomy had to have the most accurate current predictions of celestial movements. Their predictions would be considered true-in the discipline at that time. These competitions continue today with Nobel prizes. Winners in a particular discipline must be true-to the discipline’s rules and their latest work would be regarded as true-in the discipline.
The ancient Greek disciplines were not all culture-independent, but many disciplines are. Consider pottery: what potters make depends upon their culture, but how they do so is governed by physics, not culture. Use the wrong clay fired at the wrong temperature and no pottery results. Basic comprehension modes are similarly independent of culture. What is true-to the factual or mythic mode, for instance, would be true-in that mode. The criteria of truth in each mode are independent of culture because they arise from fundamental human capacities for understanding the world.
