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Greek Scientific Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

A. Wasserstein
A. Wasserstein
Affiliation:
Leicester University
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Extract

The following is a discussion of some characteristic features of Greek science. In singling out any one such characteristic one is, of course, in danger of over-emphasizing its role and of blacking-out the background of other equally characteristic features, some of which may well be effective in a very different and indeed opposite way. The argument presented here must therefore not be understood as a complete description or analysis of the character of Greek science. What is described here is only one tendency; a tendency observable in the work of many different thinkers; but also a tendency often counteracted, balanced, and sometimes almost submerged by opposite tendencies in the same thinkers. What is claimed here is no more than that certain characteristics are proportionately more prominent in ancient scientific thought and practice than they are today; it is not claimed that they were always dominant in antiquity or that they are completely foreign to modern science.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 8 , 1962 , pp. 51 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1962

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References

page 53 note 1 For examples see Kranz, , ‘Zwei Kosmologische Fragen’, Rh. Mas. c, pp. 114 ff.Google Scholar

page 54 note 1 Though not outstanding as an observer, Ptolemy was, of course, most assiduous in collecting, using, and interpreting the observations of his predecessors. It is the more remarkable, therefore, that even in his work residual ‘conventionalist’ attitudes can be detected.

page 56 note 1 See Duhem, loc. cit.; cf. also Mayor, J. E. B., J. Philol. VI, 171 ff.Google Scholar

page 57 note1 I cannot agree with Heath who argues that the date of the treatise On Sizes and Distances must be early in Aristarchus' life because the value of two degrees ascribed to the lunar diameter dates it before the discovery of the good value of half a degree. In other words I reject not only his assumption that Aristarchus seriously reckoned with the higher value but also the conclusion (based on this assumption) concerning the date of the treatise On Sizes and Distances.

page 59 note 1 Weights fall towards the centre of a sphere along the lines AB and DE indicated by the arrows. It is evident that these lines cannot be parallel.

page 59 note 2 Theoretically, sphericity might not be the only type of curvature of which this could be true; but it is the only one that is of interest here.

page 60 note 1 A literal translation would present us with problems the solutions of which are irrelevant to our purpose. See Guthrie on 296b 20.

page 60 note 2 It is hardly necessary to point out that Aristotle knows some good arguments for the sphericity of the earth, too.

page 60 note 3 There is much that is highly empirical in the work of Aristotle; and so there is in the medical writers. But that must not blind us to other elements in Aristotle and in the Hippocratic corpus. One must not forget the metaphysical presuppositions basic even to what is most empirical in Aristotle as, for example, his biological work; and anybody who imagines the Hippocratic works to be consistently models of empirical science need only read De Vetere Medicina in which the writer warns against basing medical theory and practice on metaphysical postulates such as the traditional opposites ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, ‘dry’ and ‘moist’; the same writer then develops, in the same treatise, the humoral theory!

page 61 note 1 I must not be misunderstood: I am concerned here with the programme itself, not with the words in which it was formulated.