Outline points for a lecture:

Singnificance of language, speech, writing, printing... John Searle on language and thought (a brilliant talk).

John Searle on language and human evolution...

Carl Sagan - basics of cognition, brain function, language, data retention and memory.

ORIGINS OF SCRIPT

6,000 BC – Chinese pictographic script
4,000 BC – Egyptian hieroglyphic writing
3,800 BC – Summarian cuneform Script

CLASSICAL SCRIPT / LITERATURE

900BC? Greek alphabet in use (alphabetic, phonetic system - not pictographic)

850BC? Homer - the Illyad and Odysseus (whom the Romans called Ulysses)

450 BC - Herodetus, The Histories (the first journalist?). Recent pop culture adaptation of Herodetus - 300

400 BC - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Sophoclese recorded philosophy and tragedies

THE DARK AGES

300 AD - Constantine and the origins of Christianity

529 AD - Closure/ banishment of the Greek Schools of philosophy by the Church - the absorbsion of Stoicism and the rejection of cynicism, hedonism and scepticism. Start of the 'deep' dark ages.

THE EUROPEAN DARK AGES (approx 1000 years)

740 – Lindesfarne Gospel (a rare artefact from the dark ages)
1440s - Guttenburg’s printing press (Caxton 1420s)
1460s - Lorenzo Medici, Florence, The Renaissance
1517 -  Martin Luther, 95 theses (reformation)
1540 - Henry VIIIth  - Tudor wars of religion
1563 – Foxe’s Book of Martyrs - Pulpit as news media
1588 - Spanish Armada – Elizabeth Tudor
1620 - The Mayflower – American colonies / Stuarts
1641-1651 – The English Civil War - printed 'broadsheets', 'courants'
1660 – Restoration of Stuart monarchy Charles II / Restoration literature
1667 – John Locke – Essay on Human Understanding
1688 – The Glorious Revolution/ Act of Settlement /William of Orange
1690 – Battle of the Boyne (James II – attempted Jacobite restoration).
1700 – Issac Newton
1702 – The Daily Courant
1703 – Daniel Defoe – pilloried for his pamphleteering
1707 – Act of Union with Scotland (Battle of Culloden 1745)
1709 – The Spectator / The Tatler / Joseph Addison – Whig ascendancy
1731 – Hogarth – Gin Alley (‘photojournalism')
1775 – Samuel Johnson’s dictionary
1776 - American revolution 
1789 – French revolution
1815 – Waterloo - the rise of the commercial mass circulation press (steam power, urbanisation, etc). We will return to all of these themes in later sessions.