The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450, Second Edition

The most comprehensive account of ancient and medieval science, a standard work for understanding the history of science

The Beginnings of Western Science is a landmark, the best book to 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 surveys 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 offers an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe.

            For decades this book has shaped the way students and scholars understand these critically formative periods of scientific development, and it continues to be essential to an understanding of the field. this updated second edition includes revisions on nearly every page, as well as several sections that have been completely rewritten. For example, the section on Islamic science was 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 of The Beginnings of Western Science captures the current state of our understanding of more than two millennia of science and promises to continue to inspire both students and general readers.

1139791333
The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450, Second Edition

The most comprehensive account of ancient and medieval science, a standard work for understanding the history of science

The Beginnings of Western Science is a landmark, the best book to 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 surveys 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 offers an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe.

            For decades this book has shaped the way students and scholars understand these critically formative periods of scientific development, and it continues to be essential to an understanding of the field. this updated second edition includes revisions on nearly every page, as well as several sections that have been completely rewritten. For example, the section on Islamic science was 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 of The Beginnings of Western Science captures the current state of our understanding of more than two millennia of science and promises to continue to inspire both students and general readers.

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The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450, Second Edition

The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450, Second Edition

by David C. Lindberg
The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450, Second Edition

The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450, Second Edition

by David C. Lindberg

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Overview

The most comprehensive account of ancient and medieval science, a standard work for understanding the history of science

The Beginnings of Western Science is a landmark, the best book to 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 surveys 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 offers an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe.

            For decades this book has shaped the way students and scholars understand these critically formative periods of scientific development, and it continues to be essential to an understanding of the field. this updated second edition includes revisions on nearly every page, as well as several sections that have been completely rewritten. For example, the section on Islamic science was 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 of The Beginnings of Western Science captures the current state of our understanding of more than two millennia of science and promises to continue to inspire both students and general readers.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226482040
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 02/15/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 480
File size: 9 MB

About the Author

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

     Preface


1. SCIENCE BEFORE THE GREEKS

     What Is Science?

     Prehistoric Attitudes toward Nature 

     The Beginnings of Science in Egypt and Mesopotamia


2. THE GREEKS AND THE COSMOS

     The World of Homer and Hesiod

     The First Greek Philosophers

     The Milesians and the Question of Underlying Reality

     The Question 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 

     Learning and Science in the Greek East


8. ISLAMIC SCIENCE

     The Eastward Diffusion of Greek Science

     The Birth, Expansion, and Hellenization of Islam

     Translation of Greek Science into Arabic 

     Islamic Reception and Appropriation of Greek Science

     The Islamic Scientific Achievement

     The Fate 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 

     Mathematical Astronomy

     Astrology

     The Surface of the Earth


12. The Physics of the Sublunar Region

     Matter, Form, and Substance

     Combination and Mixture

     Alchemy

     Change and Motion

     The Nature of Motion 

     Mathematical Description of Motion

     The Dynamics of Local Motion

     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 Question

     Candidates for Revolutionary Status

     The Scientific Revolution


     Notes

     Bibliography

     Index

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