The Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China

by G. E. R. Lloyd

• ISBN13: 9780521894616
• ISBN10: 0521894611
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In The Ambitions of Curiosity one of the world’s foremost philosophers of science explores the origins and growth of systematic inquiry in Greece, China, and Mesopotamia. Professor Lloyd examines which factors stimulated or inhibited this development, and whose interests were served. He asks who set the agenda? What was the role of the state in sponsoring, supporting or blocking research, in such areas as historiography, natural philosophy, medical research, astronomy, technology, pure and applied mathematics? How were each of those fields defined and developed in different ancient societies? How did truly innovative thinkers persuade their own contemporaries to accept their work? Professor Lloyd explores the different routes those developments took in China, Greece and Mesopotamia, and demonstrates the unexpected results of many research efforts, as well as the tensions between state control and individual innovation and the different ways they were resolved - problems that remain central to scientific research today.

Table of Contents

List of figures and table	viii
Preface	xi
Notes on editions	xiv
Histories, annals, myths	1	(20)
The modalities of prediction	21	(23)
The numbers of things	44	(25)
Applications and applicabilities	69	(29)
The language of learning	98	(28)
Individuals and institutions	126	(22)
Glossary of Chinese and Greek terms	148	(6)
Bibliography	154	(16)
Index	170