The Beginnings of Western Science

by Lindberg, David C.

• ISBN13: 9780226482057
• ISBN10: 0226482057
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

When it was first published in 1992,The Beginnings of Western Sciencewas lauded as the first successful attempt ever to present a unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. Chronicling the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from pre-Socratic Greek philosophy to late-Medieval scholasticism, David C. Lindberg surveyed all the most important themes in the history of science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. In addition, he offered an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe. The Beginnings of Western Sciencewas, and remains, a landmark in the history of science, shaping the way students and scholars understand these critically formative periods of scientific development. It reemerges here in a second edition that includes revisions on nearly every page, as well as several sections that have been completely rewritten. For example, the section on Islamic science has been thoroughly retooled to reveal the magnitude and sophistication of medieval Muslim scientific achievement. And the book now reflects a sharper awareness of the importance of Mesopotamian science for the development of Greek astronomy. In all, the second edition ofThe Beginnings of Western Sciencecaptures the current state of our understanding of more than two millennia of science and promises to continue to inspire both students and general readers.

Author Biography

David C. Lindberg is the Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and past-president of the History of Science Society. He is the author or editor of many books, including, with coeditor Ronald L. Numbers, When Science and Christianity Meet, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Preface	p. xv
Science Before the Greeks	p. 1
What Is Science?	p. 1
Prehistoric Attitudes toward Nature	p. 3
The Beginnings of Science in Egypt and Mesopotamia	p. 12
The Greeks and the Cosmos	p. 21
The World of Homer and Hesiod	p. 21
The First Greek Philosophers	p. 25
The Milesians and the Question of Underlying Reality	p. 27
The Question of Change	p. 32
The Problem of Knowledge	p. 33
Plato's World of Forms	p. 34
Plato's Cosmology	p. 38
The Achievement of Early Greek Philosophy	p. 43
Aristotle's Philosophy of Nature	p. 45
Life and Works	p. 45
Metaphysics and Epistemology	p. 46
Nature and Change	p. 49
Cosmology	p. 52
Motion, Terrestrial and Celestial	p. 56
Aristotle as a Biologist	p. 60
Aristotle's Achievement	p. 65
Hellenistic Natural Philosophy	p. 67
Schools and Education	p. 67
The Lyceum after Aristotle	p. 73
Epicureans and Stoics	p. 76
The Mathematical Sciences in Antiquity	p. 82
The Application of Mathematics to Nature	p. 82
Greek Mathematics	p. 83
Early Greek Astronomy	p. 86
Cosmological Developments	p. 95
Hellenistic Planetary Astronomy	p. 98
The Science of Optics	p. 105
The Science of Weights	p. 109
Greek and Roman Medicine	p. 111
Early Greek Medicine	p. 111
Hippocratic Medicine	p. 113
Hellenistic Anatomy and Physiology	p. 119
Hellenistic Medical Sects	p. 122
Galen and the Culmination of Hellenistic Medicine	p. 124
Roman and Early Medieval Science	p. 132
Greeks and Romans	p. 132
Popularizers and Encyclopedists	p. 136
Translations	p. 146
The Role of Christianity	p. 148
Roman and Early Medieval Education	p. 150
Two Early Medieval Natural Philosophers	p. 157
Learning and Science in the Greek East	p. 158
Islamic Science	p. 163
Eastward Diffusion of Greek Science	p. 163
The Birth, Expansion, and Hellenization of Islam	p. 166
Translation of Greek Science into Arabic	p. 169
Islamic Reception and Appropriation of Greek Science	p. 173
The Islamic Scientific Achievement	p. 176
The Fate of Islamic Science	p. 189
The Revival of Learning in the West	p. 193
The Middle Ages	p. 193
Carolingian Reforms	p. 194
The Schools of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries	p. 203
Natural Philosophy in the Twelfth-Century Schools	p. 209
The Translation Movement	p. 215
The Rise of Universities	p. 218
The Recovery and Assimilation of Greek and Islamic Science	p. 225
The New Learning	p. 225
Aristotle in the University Curriculum	p. 226
Points of Conflict	p. 228
Resolution: Science as Handmaiden	p. 233
Radical Aristotelianism and the Condemnations of 1270 and 1277	p. 243
The Relations of Philosophy and Theology After 1277	p. 249
The Medieval Cosmos	p. 254
The Structure of the Cosmos	p. 254
Mathematical Astronomy	p. 261
Astrology	p. 270
The Surface of the Earth	p. 277
The Physics of the Sublunar Region	p. 286
Matter, Form, and Substance	p. 286
Combination and Mixture	p. 288
Alchemy	p. 290
Change and Motion	p. 295
The Nature of Motion	p. 297
Mathematical Description of Motion	p. 299
The Dynamics of Local Motion	p. 306
Quantification of Dynamics	p. 309
The Science of Optics	p. 313
Medieval Medicine and Natural History	p. 321
The Medical Tradition of the Early Middle Ages	p. 321
The Transformation of Western Medicine	p. 329
Medical Practitioners	p. 330
Medicine in the Universities	p. 333
Disease, Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Therapy	p. 335
Anatomy and Surgery	p. 343
Development of the Hospital	p. 348
Natural History	p. 351
The Legacy of Ancient and Medieval Science	p. 357
The Continuity Question	p. 357
Candidates for Revolutionary Status	p. 359
The Scientific Revolution	p. 364
Notes	p. 369
Bibliography	p. 413
Index	p. 463
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