Greek Science

1. Greek Science Summary and Conclusions

2. Characteristic Features • The kosmos perceived to be a natural whole; gods not denied, but not considered to be active in nature. Probably the most important and enduring contribution. • Nature tends to act the same orderly way, and does nothing without a purpose. That is, there are laws of nature. • Humans can recognize those laws; do not need divine revelation.

3. Why in Ancient Greece? • Prosperity though not necessarily political stability; • Mobility/trade/exploration as venue for exchanging ideas: • commercial prosperity, etc. generated a new class of citizens (whose wealth was commercial, not landed); • allowed for movement of scholars; but they were not a caste of priests who had a monopoly on interpreting the will of the gods. • We will find the same conditions again during the high renaissance.

4. most significantly… • Scholars and scientists came from all over the Greek world; that is the interest in the study of nature was a common element in Greek urban culture (and not just at Athens). • A civic tradition of public discussion of issues; citizens decide, not autocrats and kings.

5. The Decline of Science in the Ancient World The rise of ‘pseudo science’ Ptolemy on the efficacy of astrology. It would be wrong to dismiss this type of astrological prediction completely only because it sometimes can be wrong. After all we do not discard the art of navigation as such simply because it is often imperfect...Often there is a problem about the foremost and principal fact, the fraction of the hour of birth. In general, only observations by a "horoscopic" astrolabe at the very moment of birth can, for a trained observer, give the exact time. Almost all other instruments ... are in many ways capable of errors; sundials because of their incorrect position or the incorrect angle of the gnomon; water clocks because of the stoppage and irregular flow of the water.

6. Materia medica • From the Roman scholar, Pliny the Elder: But we have shown that the most effective protection against snakes is the spittle of a fasting person; and actual daily experience confirms other effective uses of it. We spit against illnesses like epilepsy; that is we repel contagion and the danger of meeting a person lame in the right leg. ... for quartan fever the liver of a cat killed during the waning moon, preserved in salt, to be taken in wine just before attacks.

7. On the decline of ancient science • the end of the city-state and of free, public discussion • decline in prosperity; of commerce and trade; of stability; security; • alternatively, the formation of barbarian kingdoms under an essentially uneducated warrior class • It is not that science disappears, but what there is, is practiced (note the pseudo scientific texts) at a very low level.

8. The rise of Christianity • the role of the church: "(natural) philosophy [science] is the handmaiden [servant] of theology" St. Augustine. • By default, the Church became the sole source of education and literacy. • It is not the case that the Church was hostile to science, rather it saw the natural order as a reflection of God's order.

9. The Major Problem: The negative aspect of the church's role in scientific discovery in this period is the formation of a priesthood that controlled learning and whose status was closely tied to its monopoly of knowledge and education.

10. The monolithic nature of Christian Europe would prove to be a major cultural constraint. • Only when cities again became prosperous, commerce revived and the unitary structure split by the Reformation could science (in the form we have seen among the Greeks) emerge with anything like the vitality we have seen.

11. Summary Table