Synopses & Reviews
This landmark book represents the first attempt in two decades to survey the science of the ancient world, the first attempt in four decades to write a comprehensive history of medieval science, and the first attempt ever to present a full, unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. In
The Beginnings of Western Science, David C. Lindberg provides a rich chronicle of the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers to the late-medieval scholastics.
Lindberg surveys all the most important themes in the history of ancient and medieval science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. He synthesizes a wealth of information in superbly organized, clearly written chapters designed to serve students, scholars, and nonspecialists alike. In addition, Lindberg offers an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe. And throughout the book he pays close attention to the cultural and institutional contexts within which scientific knowledge was created and disseminated and to the ways in which the content and practice of science were influenced by interaction with philosophy and religion. Carefully selected maps, drawings, and photographs complement the text.
Lindberg's story rests on a large body of important scholarship produced by historians of science, philosophy, and religion over the past few decades. However, Lindberg does not hesitate to offer new interpretations and to hazard fresh judgments aimed at resolving long-standing historical disputes. Addressed to the general educated reader as well as to students, his book will also appeal to any scholar whose interests touch on the history of the scientific enterprise.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [407]-440) and index.
About the Author
David C. Lindberg (1935-2015) was the Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsinand#8211;Madison and past-president of the History of Science Society. His scholarship focused on the history of medieval and early modern science, especially physical science and the relationship between religion and science. He was the author or editor of many books, several of which were published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Science and Its Origins
What Is Science?
Prehistoric Attitudes toward Nature
Babylonian and Egyptian Science
2. The Greeks and the Cosmos
The World of Homer and Hesiod
The First Greek Philosophers
The Milesians and the Question of Ultimate Reality
The Problem of Change
The Problem of Knowledge
Plato's World of Forms
Plato's Cosmology
The Achievement of Early Greek Philosophy
3. Aristotle's Philosophy of Nature
Life and Works
Metaphysics and Epistemology
Nature and Change
Cosmology
Motion, Terrestrial and Celestial
Aristotle as a Biologist
Aristotle's Achievement
4. Hellenistic Natural Philosophy
Schools and Education
The Lyceum after Aristotle
Epicureans and Stoics
5. The Mathematical Sciences in Antiquity
The Application of Mathematics to Nature
Greek Mathematics
Early Greek Astronomy
Cosmological Developments
Hellenistic Planetary Astronomy
The Science of Optics
The Science of Weights
6. Greek and Roman Medicine
Early Greek Medicine
Hippocratic Medicine
Hellenistic Anatomy and Physiology
Hellenistic Medical Sects
Galen and the Culmination of Hellenistic Medicine
7. Roman and Early Medieval Science
Greeks and Romans
Popularizers and Encyclopedists
Translations
The Role of Christianity
Roman and Early Medieval Education
Two Early Medieval Natural Philosophers
8. Science in Islam
Learning and Science in Byzantium
The Eastward Diffusion of Greek Science
The Birth, Expansion, and Hellenization of Islam
Translation of Greek Science into Arabic
The Islamic Response to Greek Science
The Islamic Scientific Achievement
The Decline of Islamic Science
9. The Revival of Learning in the West
The Middle Ages
Carolingian Reforms
The Schools of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Natural Philosophy in the Twelfth-Century Schools
The Translation Movement
The Rise of Universities
10. The Recovery and Assimilation of Greek and
Islamic Science
The. New Learning
Aristotle in the University Curriculum
Points of Conflict
Resolution: Science as Handmaiden
Radical Aristotelianism and the Condemnations of 1270
and 1277
The Relations of Philosophy and Theology after 1277
11. The Medieval Cosmos
The Structure of the Cosmos
The Heavens
The Terrestrial Region
The Greek and Islamic Background to Western
Astronomy
Astronomy in the West
Astrology
12. The Physics of the Sublunar Region
Matter, Form, and Substance
Combination and Mixture
Alchemy
Change and Motion
The Nature of Motion
The Mathematical Description of Motion
The Dynamics of Local Motion
The Quantification of Dynamics
The Science of Optics
13. Medieval Medicine and Natural History
The Medical Tradition of the Early Middle Ages
The Transformation of Western Medicine
Medical Practitioners
Medicine in the Universities
Disease, Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Therapy
Anatomy and Surgery
Development of the Hospital
Natural History
14. The Legacy of Ancient and Medieval Science
The Continuity Debate
The Medieval Scientific Achievement
Notes
Bibliography
Index