Science before the Greeks”|My homework helper

Posted: March 14th, 2023

Please answer these questions in paragraph form using my included article, and outside sources. Please paraphrase instead of quotation marks. Please make it about 800 words long.

Read Lindberg’s chapter “Science before the Greeks” and explain the specifications of the oral
cultures: their interpretation of natural phenomena, their cosmology and cosmogony, causality,
and history. Explain the role of writing in development of analytical studies, philosophy, and
science

what’s science ? The opinion that there was no science in the two thousand years covered by this

book continues to be stated with considerable regularity and dogmatic fervor. If the claim is true, I have written a book about a nonexistent subject—no mean feat, but not my goal. This book proclaims in its title that it will portray the beginnings of Western science over the approximately three millennia ending about the year a.d. 1450. Was there truly such a thing as science in those times? And if the answer is affirmative, was there enough of it to merit book-length coverage?

Before we can answer these questions, we need a definition of “science”—something that turns out to be surprisingly difficult to come by. There is, of course, the dictionary definition, according to which “science” is organized, systematic knowledge of the material world. But this proves to be so gen-eral as to be of little help. For example, do craft traditions and technology count for science, or are science and technology to be distinguished from one another—the former dedicated to theoretical knowledge, the latter to its application? If only theoretical knowledge counts as genuine science, we then need to decide which theories (or which kinds of theory) pass the test. Do astrology and parapsychology, both of which are chock full of theories, count as sciences?

Perceiving that the “theoretical knowledge” criterion is heading toward a dead end, some participants in the debate argue that true science can be recognized by its methodology—specifically, the experimental method, according to which a theory, if it is to be truly scientific, must be built on and tested against the results of observation and experiment. (In the minds of many of its advocates, a series of rigorously defined steps must be employed.) Theories that meet this test are often credited with superior epistemological status or warrant and thus are representative of a privileged way of knowing.

Finally, for many people—scientists and general public alike—true science is defined simply by its content—the current teachings of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, anthropology, psychology, and so forth.

This brief foray into lexicography ought to remind us that many words, especially the most interesting ones, have multiple meanings that shift with the contexts of usage or the practices of specific linguistic communities. Every meaning of the term “science” discussed above is a convention accepted by a sizable group of people, who are unlikely to relinquish their favored usage without a fight. From which it follows that we have no choice but to accept a diverse set of meanings as legitimate and do our best to determine from the context of usage what the term “science” means on any specific occasion.

But where does that leave us? Was there anything in Europe or the Near East in the twenty centuries covered by this book that merits the name “science”? No doubt! Many of the ingredients of what we now regard as science were certainly present. I have in mind languages for describing nature, meth-ods for exploring or investigating it (including the performance of experiments), factual and theoretical claims (stated mathematically wherever possible) that emerged from such explorations, and criteria for judging the truth or validity of the claims thus made. Moreover, it is clear that pieces of the resulting ancient and medieval knowledge were, for all practical purposes, identical to what all parties would now judge to be genuine science. Planetary astronomy, geometrical optics, field biology or natural history, and certain branches of medicine are excellent examples.

This is not to deny significant differences—in motivation, instrumentation, institutional support, methodological preferences, mechanisms for the dissemination of theoretical results, and social function. Despite these differences, I believe that we can comfortably employ the expression “science” or “natural science” in the context of antiquity and the

Middle Ages. In so doing, we declare that the ancient and medieval activities that we are investigating are the ancestors of modern scientific disciplines and therefore an integral part of their history. It is like my relationship to my paternal grandfather. The differences between us may outweigh the similarities; but I am his descendant, bearing to some extent both his genetic and his cultural stamp. And both of us may honorably claim the family name.

There is a danger that must be avoided. If historians of science were to investigate past practices and beliefs only insofar as those practices and beliefs resemble modern science, the result would be serious distortion. We would not be responding to the past as it existed, but examining it through a modern grid. If we wish to do justice to the historical enterprise, we must take the past for what it was. And that means that we must resist the temptation to scour the past for examples or precursors of modern science. We must respect the way earlier generations approached nature, acknowledging that although it may differ from the modern way, it is nonetheless of interest because it is part of our intellectual ancestry. This is the only suitable way of understanding how we became what we are. The historian, then, requires a very broad definition of “science”—one that will permit investigation of the vast range of practices and beliefs that lie behind, and help us to understand, the modern scientific enterprise. We need to be broad and inclusive, rather than narrow and exclusive; and we should expect that the farther back we go, the broader we will need to be.

I will do my best to heed my own advice, adopting a definition of “science” as broad as that of the historical actors whose intellectual efforts we are attempting to understand. This does not mean, of course, that all distinctions are forbidden. I will distinguish between the craft and theoretical sides of science—a distinction that many ancient and medieval scholars would themselves have insisted upon—and I will focus my attention on the latter.2 The exclusion of technology and the crafts from this narrative is not meant as a commentary on their importance, but rather as an acknowledgment of the magnitude of the problems confronting the history of technology and its status as a distinct historical specialty having its own skilled practitioners. My concern will be with the beginnings of scientific theories, the methods by which they were formulated, and the uses to which they were put; and that will prove a sufficient challenge.

A final word about terminology. Until now, I have consistently employed the word “science” to denote the object of our historical study. The time has come, however, to introduce the alternative expressions “natural philosophy” and “philosophy of nature,” which will also appear frequently in this book. These are expressions that ancient and medieval scholars themselves applied to investigations of the natural world that concentrated on questions of mate-rial causation, as opposed to mathematical analysis. For the latter, the term “mathematics” did service. And finally, a vocabulary developed for identifying sub disciplines such as astronomy, optics, meteorology, metallurgy, the science of motion, the science of weights, geography, natural history (including both plants and animals), and medicine. Close attention by the reader to context should make the meaning clear in every case.

prehistoric attitudes toward nature From the beginning, the survival of the human race has depended on its ability to

cope with the natural environment. Prehistoric people developed impressive technologies for obtaining the necessities of life. They learned how to make tools, start fires, obtain shelter, hunt, fish, and gather fruits and vegetables. Successful hunting and food gathering (and, after about 7000 or 8000 b.c., settled agriculture) required a substantial knowledge of animal

behavior and the characteristics of plants. At a more advanced level, prehistoric people learned to distinguish between poisonous and therapeutic herbs. They developed a variety of crafts, including pottery, weaving, and metalworking. By 3500 they had invented the wheel. They were aware of the seasons and perceived the connection between the seasons and various celestial phenomena. In short, they knew a great deal about their environment.

But the word “know,” seemingly so clear and simple, is almost as tricky as the term “science”; indeed, it brings us back to the distinction between technology and theoretical science. It is one thing to know how to do things, another to know why they behave as they do. One can engage in successful and sophisticated carpentry, for example, without any theoretical knowledge of stresses in the timbers one employs. An electrician with only the most rudimentary knowledge of electrical theory can successfully wire a house. It is possible to differentiate between poisonous and therapeutic herbs with-out possessing any biochemical knowledge that would explain poisonous or therapeutic properties. The point is simply that practical rules of thumb can be effectively employed even in the face of total ignorance of the theoretical principles that lie behind them. You can have “know-how” without theoretical knowledge.

It should be clear, then, that in practical or technological terms, the knowledge of prehistoric humans was great and growing. But what about theoretical knowledge? What did prehistoric people “know” or believe about the origins of the world in which they lived, its nature, and the causes of its numerous and diverse phenomena? Did they have any awareness of general laws or principles that governed the particular case? Did they even ask such questions? We have very little evidence on the subject. Prehistoric culture is by definition oral culture; and oral cultures, as long as they remain exclusively oral, leave no written remains. However, an examination of the findings of anthropologists studying preliterate tribes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, along with careful attention to remnants of prehistoric thought carried over into the earliest written records, will allow us to formulate a few tentative generalizations.

Critical to the investigation of intellectual culture in a preliterate society is an understanding of the process of communication. In the absence of writing, the only form of verbal communication is the spoken word; and the only storehouses of knowledge are the memories of individual members of the community. The transmission of ideas and beliefs in such a culture occurs only in face-to-face encounters, through a process that has been characterized as “a long chain of interlocking conversations” between its members. The portion of these conversations considered important enough to remember and pass on to succeeding generations forms the basis of an oral tradition, which serves as the principal repository for the collective experience and the general beliefs, attitudes, and values of the community.

There is an important feature of oral tradition that demands our attention—namely, its fluidity. Oral tradition is typically in a continuous state of evolution, as it absorbs new experiences and adjusts to new conditions and needs within the community. Now, this fluidity of oral tradition would be extremely frustrating if the function of oral tradition was conceived as the communication of abstract historical or scientific data—the oral equivalent of a historical archive or a scientific report. But an oral culture, lacking the ability to write, certainly cannot create archives or reports; indeed, an oral culture lacks even the idea of writing and must therefore lack even the idea of a historical archive or a scientific report.4 The primary function of oral tradition is the very practical one of explaining, and thereby justifying, the present state and structure of the community, supplying the community with a continuously evolving “social charter.” For example, an account of past events may be

employed to legitimate current leadership roles, property rights, or distribution of privileges and obligations. And in order to serve this function effectively, oral tradition must be capable of adjusting itself fairly rapidly to changes in social structure.

But here we are principally interested in the content of oral traditions, especially those portions of the content that deal with the nature of the universe—the portions, that is, that might be thought of as the ingredients of a worldview or a cosmology. Such ingredients exist within every oral tradition, but often beneath the surface, seldom articulated, and almost never assembled into a coherent whole. It follows that we must be extremely reluctant to articulate the worldview of preliterate people on their behalf, for this cannot be done without our supplying the elements of coherence and system, thereby distorting the very conceptions we are attempting to portray. But we may, if we are careful, formulate certain conclusions about the ingredients or elements of worldview within preliterate oral traditions.

It is clear that preliterate people, no less than those of us who live in modern scientific culture, need explanatory principles capable of bringing order, unity, and especially meaning to the apparently random and chaotic flow of events. But we should not expect the explanatory principles accepted by preliterate people to resemble ours: lacking any conception of “laws of nature” or deterministic causal mechanisms, their ideas of causation extend well beyond the sort of mechanical or physical action acknowledged by modern science. It is natural that in the search for meaning they should proceed within the framework of their own experience, projecting human or biological traits onto objects and events that seem to us devoid not only of humanity but also of life. Thus, the beginning of the universe is typically described in terms of birth, and cosmic events may be interpreted as the outcome of a struggle between opposing forces, one good and the other evil. There is an inclination in preliterate cultures not only to personalize but also to individualize causes, to suppose that things happen as they do because they have been willed to do so. This tendency has been described by H. and H. A. Frankfort:

Our view of causality . . . would not satisfy primitive man because of the impersonal character of its explanations. It would not satisfy him, moreover, because of its generality. We understand phenomena, not by what makes them peculiar, but by what makes them manifestations of general laws. But a general law cannot do justice to the individual char-acter of each event. And the individual character of the event is precisely what early man experiences most strongly. We may explain that certain physiological processes cause a man’s death. Primitive man asks: Why should this man die thus at this moment? We can only say that, given these conditions, death will always occur. He wants to find a cause as specific and individual as the event which it must explain. The event . . . is experienced in its complexity and individuality, and these are matched by equally individual causes.

Oral traditions typically portray the universe as consisting of sky and earth, and perhaps also an underworld. An African myth describes the earth as a mat that has been unrolled but remains tilted, thereby explaining upstream and downstream—an illustration of the general tendency to describe the universe in terms of familiar objects and processes. Deity is an omnipresent reality within the world of oral traditions, though in general no clear distinction is drawn between the natural, the supernatural, and the human; the gods do not transcend the universe but are rooted in it and subject to its principles. Belief in the existence of ghosts of the dead, spirits, and a variety of invisible powers, which magical ritual allows one to control, is another universal feature of oral tradition. Reincarnation (the idea that after

death the soul returns in another body, either human or animal) is widely believed in. Conceptions of space and time are not (like those of modern physics) abstract and mathematical, but are invested with meaning and value drawn from the experience of the community. For example, the cardinal directions for a community whose existence is closely connected to a river might be “upstream” and “downstream,” rather than north, south, east, and west. Some oral cultures have difficulty conceiving of more than a very shallow past: an African tribe, the Tio, for example, cannot situate anybody farther back in time than two generations.

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