Science

Antiquity and its Legacy

Philippa Lang (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

240 Seiten

2019
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-12151-5 (ISBN)

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Ancient science is a subject that commands extensive general interest. This is the first non-technical survey of the interface between ancient and modern science. It is aimed at crossover student sales in classics, the history of ideas and the history and philosophy of science. Modern science and its technology are the children of the seventeenth-century. But the bold investigative experimentation and scientific systems of thought that this era spawned were in turn thoroughly influenced by Greek and Roman authors and ideas. Xenophanes' ideas about fossils informed the science of geology. Copernicus and his novel notion that the earth revolved around the sun, and not vice versa, were arguably influenced by the Samian philosopher and mathematician, Aristarchus. And the anatomists of Alexandria still - even today - have valuable insights to bring to current ethical discussions of vivisection and animal welfare. Shedding fresh light on topics such as Euclid's geometry, Aristotelian physics and the proto-Darwinism of pre-Socratic thinkers like Empedocles, Philippa Lang addresses the fascinating differences and similarities between ancient and modern conceptions of 'science'.She discusses the origins of the cosmos; natural laws in mathematics and physics; conceptions and philosophies of biology and disease; ideas about mechanistic science and technology as they have been used to control the societies of human beings; and the important nexus between science, morality and ethics.
Greek and Roman parallels illuminate and clarify the meaning of science itself.

Philippa Lang was Associate Professor of Classics at Emory University, and is the author of Medicine in Ptolemaic Egypt (2012).

Acknowledgments
Note on Dates

Foreword (by the series editor)

Ch 1: Strange Worlds
Ch 2: Strange Creatures
Ch 3: Natural Laws and How to Discover Them
Ch 4: Illness and Disease
Ch 5: Controlling the World
Ch 6: Then and Now

Some Suggestions for Further Reading
Notes
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	12.07.2019
Reihe/Serie	Ancients and Moderns
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	138 x 216 mm
Gewicht	306 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Altertum / Antike
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie Altertum / Antike
	Naturwissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-350-12151-7 / 1350121517
ISBN-13	978-1-350-12151-5 / 9781350121515
Zustand	Neuware