The death of Greek science

[fortigurn]

I recently wrote a brief article on the idea that Christianity was responsible for the death of Greek science. My sources were limited, and I'd like to know if anyone can recommend some good books on the history of science in general, and the decline of Greek science in particular.

[merkavah12]

Off hand?

"Beginnings of Western Science" by David Lindberg would be my first choice.

[James Hannam]

Hi Jonno,

Thanks for the link. This looks like a useful article with plenty of references. I did a blog post looking at how Greek science stagnated a few months ago that might be of interest:

bedejournal.blogspot.com/2010/09/richard-carrier-on-ancient-science.html

Tracey Rihll's short Greek Science is well worth a read. She ascribes the decay to a lack of investment which is not quite as daft as it sounds. The universities in the medieval Europe provided that far more people could live from and learn natural philosophy than was possible in the ancient world. Of course, we know where the cash for all this was coming from...

Best wishes

James

[fortigurn]

merkavah12, it's on my very long wishlist! James, thanks very much. That article of yours covers specific claims I was unable to address. I was wary of the economic explanations because the few I found had explicit Marxist foundations (arguments about the influence of slavery and ownership of the means of production), which weren't treated kindly in the few sources I read which even mentioned them, but what you have referred to there looks far more intelligent and mainstream.

[joe]

The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler is a classic. AK argues the Greeks never developed science as we define the term because of the slavish loyalty to Aristotle. For example, they had all the information needed to develop a heliocentric model; but failed to do so because to do so would conflict with Aristotle.

[fortigurn]

Jun 23, 2011 18:10:57 GMT joe said:

The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler is a classic. AK argues the Greeks never developed science as we define the term because of the slavish loyalty to Aristotle. For example, they had all the information needed to develop a heliocentric model; but failed to do so because to do so would conflict with Aristotle.

I think that's a strong argument. The sheer volume of Aristotle's textual output is simply incredible to me; it's difficult for me to believe that 'Aristotle' wasn't in fact a philosophy guild rather than a single individual. His influence was also grossly disproportionate.

But what amazes me even more is the sheer extent to which he was wrong on so many issues, and the huge impact this had on science for the next 2,400 years. Some of his errors were still being supported in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[himself]

Don't be too quick to diss Aristotle. The development of a heliocentric system would require a great deal that simply was not possible in ancient Greek science, and it would go against all the empirical evidence, as ThonyC points out at Renaissance Mathematicus thonyc.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/but-it-doesn%E2%80%99t-move/. It is all well and good to say that hypothesizing a vaster distance to the stars would explain the lack of parallax, but what proof was there that the stars were so much farther away?

The revolution had to be a shift of astronomy from the "mathematicus" used to conduct accurate astrology to a branch of physics. After all, Ptolemaic astronomy contradicted Aristotelian physics, but they kept doing it because it was useful. But the astronomers regarded their epicycles and such as mere mathematical gimmicks to make the astrological predictions come out right. It was only when the telescope revealed that one could make physical discoveries in the heavens - Jovian moons! mountains on Luna! spots on the sun! - that people began to think of astronomy as exploring a physical cosmos to make new discoveries.

[fortigurn]

I don't dismiss Aristotle out of hand; he was clearly a polymath of a very high order, and he made some genuine contributions. I don't fault him for failing to discover what he was prevented from discovering through lack of resources or socio-cultural limitations.

It's his massive dependence on 'That sounds about right to me, must be right, no need to actually check' which astonishes me. He just made things up and assumed they were correct without any method of actual validation whatsoever. And the Greeks loved this so much they kept doing it for centuries. It staggers me that anyone would do this. The legacy of failed scientific theories he left us was truly crippling.