Science in antiquity

by Benjamin Farrington

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156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Scholar and professor of Classics, teaching in Ireland (1916–1920), South Africa (1920–1935), and Great Britain (1935–1956). Although his academic career spanned several disciplines, he is most well known for his contributions to the history of Greek science. Moreover, within the development of the discipline his books were some of the first written in the English language that focused specifically on Greek science. In addition to his professional academic career he was also active in socialist politics, using his intellectual capabilities to speak and write on it. While beginning his academic career in South Africa in 1920 he became heavily involved in the Irish Republican Association of South Africa. In the process he wrote several articles for local South African newspapers about the need for Ireland to separate from England. In addition he was instrumental in forming the Irish Peace Conference in Paris in 1922. Such political commitments inevitably influenced his teaching style, giving him the reputation in South Africa of being an intellectual Marxist. However, from the perspective of some critics, his Marxist commitments overshadowed his scholarly work, heavily tainting his work. One of his better known pamphlets on socialism, written in 1940, is The Challenge of Socialism.

Reviews

[Mark Bowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

SCIENCE IN ANTIQUITY
BY
BENJAMIN FARRINGTON

The science of antiquity was the science of the Greeks. Beginning with the Ionians, passing through the minds of So¬crates, Plato and Aristotle and culminating in the great Alexan-drian age the Greeks began to systematically explain universal phenomena and law. The main purpose of this book is then to examine the Greek history of science and its influences from the sixth century B.C. to its disappearance in the fifth century A.D.
Though the Greeks often denied it, they were influenced by the societies in Egypt and Mesopotamia. We know of Egyptian science through the Rhind and the Edwin Smith Papyrus'. The Rhind papyrus (1650 B.C.) contained Egyptian knowledge of mathematics displaying a variety of number properties, including a decimal system. The Edwin Smith papyrus contained medical knowledge and was a true work of science in the modern sense. It contained a surgical treatise which systematically dealt with injuries from the head downward. Its major conclusion was that the body was a single organism with its central organ being the heart.
Babylonian or Mesopotamian science was older than its Egyp¬tian counterpart, with soft clay tablets dating back to 3000 B.C. They had a great deal of geometric knowledge and were the first to divide the circle into 360 parts. Babylonian astronomy was born from astrological ideas. The Priesthood of the Chaldeans were the main practitioners. They observed the motions of the planets and made calendars for the rising constellations. They also developed a lunar-solar year which was made up of twelve months and thirty days, with every sixth year bringing an addi¬tional month. These early scientists set the way for the early Greek schools.
The first school of early Greek science was the Ionian school in the sixth century B.C. Their greatest achievement was in speculative philosophy which began with Homer's Iliad in the sixth century B.C. The main difference between scientists at this period compared with the earlier Egyptians and Babylonians was that Greek science was a lay movement which allowed for individ¬ual scientists to emerge. The center of this Ionian school was on the coast of Asia Minor, in the city of Miletus.
Four of the most influential Milesian thinkers were Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Heraclitus. They were the center of the Ionian movement. Thales' important contributions were made in the field of geometry. He is also credited for being the first to provide a non supernatural explanation of nature. Thales' stu¬dent, Anaximander, proposed his own theory of life which is characteristic of the modern evolutionary theory. He said that living creatures came from a moist element, specifically the sea. These creatures eventually migrated to the land whereby man emerged from them. Anaximenes, Anaximander's protege, supplement¬ed and combined the works of his former masters. These milesian philosophers were not concerned with validity. That was one problem they choose not to explain. Heraclitus of Ephesus was a proponent of reason over the senses. With his views he defines the main Ionian philosophy that reason should be trusted for the senses are fallible.
The Italian schools were the next to emerge and with it was a heaver concentration on mathematics and religion. Pythagoras started the first school at Croton where he felt that god was the always the geometer and that numbers and space were mystical. In the fifth century B.C. Euclid in his Elements provides a number of arithmetic discoveries along with the famous Pythagorean theorem A^2+B^2=C^2. Parmenides, founder of the Eleatic school, which believed, along with Heraclitus, that the senses were not to be trusted. He felt that motion and change were illusions to the senses. Parmedies student, Zeno, invented paradoxes to sup¬port the Parmendian view, the most famous being the tortoise and Achilles race paradox.
The atomic theory had its beginning with Leucippus, a Mile¬tus native. He said that solids consisted of minute particles that were separated by void, too small for the senses to per-ceive. Democritus, his student, developed a new cosmology based on the atomic theory. He correctly interpreted the first princi¬ple of scientific thought; "Nothing is created into nothing or destroyed into nothing." Two accomplishments were provided by the inception of the atomic theory. First it described a much needed distinction between math and physics. And secondly it allowed the human spirit to return to the theoretical world.
Greek medicine arose which spread the scientific spirit and divided the disciplines of science and philosophy. The medical school of Cos, founded by Hippocrates, was the first scientific institution from which complete scientific treaties exist. These treaties consisted of case histories which followed the patients throughout their illness. The complete scientific sense of syste¬mized research is entered for the first time by this Hippocratic school of medicine at Cos.
With Socrates and Plato, the only great native Athenian thinkers, Ionian science was attacked. Socrates believed in an intelligent design of the universe. He felt that if the earth was in the center of the universe, it was so because that was the best possible place for it. This is the doctrine of mind. Plato, who devoted his life to his teachings from Socrates, founded an academy in Athens for higher learning. He said it was the soul that allowed our senses to perceive. It was in this that he strongly disagreed with the Ionians.
Aristotle, though Plato's student, restored the Ionian tradition of knowledge through the senses. He also returned to the practice of research as the Ionians had defined in their Hippocratic school of medicine. He claimed to have discovered the fifth element, after air, water, fire and earth. He called it ether which moved in circular motions around the universe. Later in life he applied himself to a number of fields, especially biology. His greatest accomplishment in this area was the establishment of Scala Naturae which was a method of classifying all creatures.
After the death of Aristotle (322 B.C.) the intellectual leadership of Athens was taken over by Alexandria. The Alexandri¬an advancement of medicine (300-250 B.C.) was primarily the result of two men, Herophilus and Erasistratus. Herophilus of Chalcedon worked in the area of anatomical studies. He was the first to understand the function of the nervous system and deter¬mine that the brain was its center. Physiological studies were undertaken by Erasistratus of Chios. After the dissection of numerous animals, he categorized the vascular system. The Alexan¬drian astronomical work was both theoretical and observational. Hipparchus (c. 125 B.C.), considered to be the greatest Alexan¬drian astronomer, described the motions of the planets by a system of epicycles. Eratosthenes, who was the Alexandrian li¬brarian, was able to calculate the circumference of the earth within fifty miles.
The Greco-Roman world was the leader of scientific discovery from the middle of the second century B.C. to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D. This period is mostly known for advancements in mathematics, astronomy and geography. Algebra was developed by Diophantus (250 A.D.). Ptole¬my (around 161 A.D.) sought to explain both geography and astron¬omy. In the Almagest he further explained Hipparchus' epicycle motion of the planets. In his book Geography he locates and fixes the position of over 8000 places in Greece. The Roman mind pre¬ferred to assimilate information rather than to investigate new areas. Their most noteworthy accomplishment was the encyclopedia. Pliny (23-79 A.D.) who was an encyclopedist who restored lost chemical knowledge of the ancient world. Rome failed in their task of the assimilation of Greek science.
By the end of the second century A.D. the advancement of science had stopped. The roots of influence for this science had dated back to the early civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The science of antiquity, which began with the sixth century Ionians had slowed gradually because of one main reason. Science was reserved only for the upper class. The advancements it de¬veloped were not distributed to the common people through general education. As a result, the common man received no benefits from these endeavors and so it was left to fade away.

[DHARMIK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great

[Milo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sencillo, directo y completo. Un recorrido por las escuelas del pensamiento científico desde los milesios en el siglo VI a.c hasta los albores del cristianismo, desde pensadores completamente filosóficos como Platón hasta geómetras y matemáticos tan metódicos como Hiparco, comparando teorías, corrientes, autores y las diferentes críticas entre ellos, así como el legado que han dejado a figuras relevantes de la posteridad como Bacon, Newton o Copérnico. La única pega que pondría es que resulte tan breve.