Structures and strategies in ancient Greek and Roman technical writing: An Introduction

Most of our knowledge of Greek and Roman scientific practice and its place in ancient culture is derived from our study of ancient texts. In the last few decades, this written evidence—ancient technical or specialist literature—has begun to be studied using tools of literary analysis to help answer questions about, for instance, how these works were composed, their authors’ intentions and the expectations of their readers.This introduction to Structures and strategies in ancient Greek and Roman technical writing provides an overview of recent scholarship in the area, and the difficulty in pinning down what ‘technical/specialist literature’ might mean in an ancient context, since Greek and Roman authors communicated scientific knowledge using a wide variety of styles and forms of text (e.g. poetry, dialogues, letters).An outline of the three sections is provided: Form as a mirror of method, in which Sabine Föllinger and Alexander Mueller explore ways in which the structures of texts by Aristotle and Plutarch may reflect methodological concerns; Authors and their implied readers, with contributions by Oliver Stoll, David Creese, Boris Dunsch and Paula Olmos, which examines what ancient texts can tell us about the place of technical knowledge in antiquity; Science and the uses of poetry, with articles by Jochen Althoff, Michael Coxhead and Laurence Totelin, and a new English translation of the Aetna poem by Harry Hine, which explores the (to us) unexpected roles of poetry in ancient scientific culture.     

Francesco Patrizi’s two books on space: geometry, mathematics, and dialectic beyond Aristotelian science

Francesco Patrizi was a competent Greek scholar, a mathematician, and a Neoplatonic thinker, well known for his sharp critique of Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition. In this article I shall present, in the first part, the importance of the concept of a three-dimensional space which is regarded as a body, as opposed to the Aristotelian two-dimensional space or interval, in Patrizi’s discussion of physical space. This point, I shall argue, is an essential part of Patrizi’s overall critique of Aristotelian science, in which Epicurean, Stoic, and mainly Neoplatonic elements were brought together, in what seems like an original theory of space and a radical revision of Aristotelian physics. Moreover, I shall try to show Patrizi’s dialectical method of definition, his geometrical argumentation, and trace some of the ideas and terms used by him back to Proclus’ Commentary on Euclid. This text of Proclus, as will be shown in the second part of the article, was also important for Patrizi’s discussion of mathematical space, where Patrizi deals with the status of mathematics and redefines some mathematical concepts such as the point and the line according to his new theory of space.     

Essay review

This paper treats van Helmont's attack on Aristotle as an example of the difficulty of accounting for one author's attack on another by simply comparing the texts of the two authors. The Aristotle that van Helmont is attacking is the Aristotle represented in contemporary textbooks, and the attack on his authority is closely connected to the attack on the importance of verbal disputation in education. The importance of knowledge of Aristotle and of argumentative skills means van Helmont displays them to claim competence in them, while arguing they are worthless, and states many of his own doctrines as denials of Aristotelian doctrines. After a brief account of van Helmont's cosmology, three texts of his are examined: the conclusion of Causae et initia naturalium, where van Helmont demonstrates the worthlessness of Aristotelian method, by giving an example of his own method's greater success, the beginning of Physica Aristotelis et Galeni ignara, where he argues in Aristotelian terms against an Aristotelian definition of nature, and his general attack on Aristotelian method and on verbal disputation in Logica inutilis.     

John case on art and nature

John Case (d. 1600), the most important English Aristotelian of the Renaissance period, has not yet received the attention he deserves. In his Lapis philosophicus (Oxford, 1599), an exposition of Aristotle's Physics, is found a discussion of the relation of nature to art which parallels in many ways that formulated a few years later in the writings of Francis Bacon. Case argues, in a way more reminiscent of the works of Giambattista della Porta than of those of Aristotle, that the natural philosopher can legitimately apply the productive arts in helping nature to fulfill her function. Moreover, while rejecting the excessive claims of the Paracelsians, Case does accept the transmutational claims of the alchemists. In the final analysis, his ‘Aristotelianism’ has been tempered by the tradition of Renaissance natural magic. Like many other Peripatetic thinkers of the period, Case shows himself to be an eclectic, drawing materials from a wide variety of sources and open to many of the new scientific tendencies then developing.     

Galileo and the problem of infinity

During the period before the Greek revolution of 1821, and especially during the years between 1750 and 1821, there were two ways in which European scientific thought was propagated in Greece. The first is traditional. It comes from ancient Greece and, through Byzantium, reaches the period before the Greek revolution. It makes known the thought of Aristotle, Democrititus, and others on ‘natural philosophy’. The second way comes from Europe. The Greek scholars of the period before the Greek revolution, and especially at the end of the eighteenth century, tried to bring to and propagate in Greece the spirit ofthe European Enlightenment, They tried to make known to the Greek people the scientific achievements of Newton, Descartes, Lavoisier, and Laplace. Scientific knowledge is an important weapon against superstition, and Greek students had to learn about science to become free persons in an independent Greek state.     

Kant and the scope of the analytic method

The paper investigates Kant's pre-critical views on the use of analytic and synthetic methods in Newtonian science and in philosophical reasoning. In his 1755/56 writings, Kant made use of two variants of the analytic method, i.e., conceptual analysis in a Cartesian (or Leibnizean) sense, and analysis of the phenomena in a Newtonian sense. His Prize Essay (1764) defends Newton's analytic method of physics as appropriate for philosophy, in contradistinction to the synthetic method of mathematics. A closer look, however, shows that Kant does not identify Newton's method with conceptual analysis, but just suggests a methodological analogy between both methods. Kant’s 1768 paper on incongruent counterparts also fits in with his pre-critical use of conceptual analysis. Here, Kant criticizes Leibniz’ relational concept of space, arguing that it is incompatible with the phenomenon of chiral objects. Since this result was in conflict with his pre-critical views about space, Kant abandoned the analytic method of philosophy in favour of his critical method. The paper closes by comparing Kant's pre-critical analytic method and the way in which he once again took up the methodological analogy between Newtonian science and metaphysics, in the preface B to the Critique of Pure Reason, in the context of his thought experiment of pure reason.     

Towards a science of the individual: the Aristotelian search for scientific knowledge of individual entities

This article seeks to take a step towards recognizing that science can deal with the concrete and individual as well as the universal. I shall concentrate on some of Aristotle’s texts, as there is a long tradition going back to Aristotle, according to which science deals only with the universal, although his work also contains texts of a very different tenor. He tries to improve the process of definition as an attempt to bring science closer to the concrete, but ends up realizing that there are some unreachable limits. There is, however, a second Aristotelian approach to the problem in Metaphysica M 10, a passage which takes scientific rapprochement to the individual further by introducing a distinction between science in potential and science in act. The former is universal, but the latter deals with individual substances and processes. Aristotle himself acknowledges here that in one sense science is universal and in another it is not, a position that raises important ontological and epistemological problems. Some suggestions are also offered concerning the kind of truth applicable to science in act, that is, practical truth.     

Autobiography and ‘The Two Cultures’ in the novels of C. P. Snow

That C. P. Snow had first-hand experience both in science and writing was taken for granted in the years of controversy over ‘the two cultures’, but neither the quality of his experience nor the circumstances of his eventual adoption of a literary career was given close enough consideration. Snow's own statements on these two points are often misleading. Yet the autobiographical nature of his fiction throws significant light on the subject. An examination of the autobiographical elements in Snow's novels in the light of his conception of the novel raises the question of whether his shift from science to literature was exactly the result of a genuine choice and also reveals that the two cultures dichotomy is embedded in his personal experience.     

Thomas Clifford Allbutt and Comparative Pathology

This paper reconceptualizes Thomas Clifford Allbutt's contributions to the making of scientific medicine in late nineteenth-century England. Existing literature on Allbutt usually describes his achievements, such as his design of the pocket thermometer and his advocacy of the use of the ophthalmoscope in general medicine, as independent events; and his work on the development of comparative pathology is largely overlooked. In this paper I focus on this latter aspect. I examine Allbutt's books and addresses and claim that Allbutt argued for the centrality of comparative pathology in the advancement of medical knowledge. He held that diseases should be studied as biological phenomena and that medicine should be made a biological science. He also argued that comparative pathology should be based upon the idea of evolution, and its study should embrace other nineteenth-century sciences including neurology, embryology and bacteriology. Allbutt's writings reveal that his endorsement of comparative pathology (1880s to 1920s), his promotion of the use of the ophthalmoscope and the thermometer in clinical medicine (early 1870s), and his support of the hospital unit system (1910s to 1920s) were part of a single programme. All were grounded in his scientific vision of medicine which emphasized a research culture, a stringent nosological attitude and an integration of laboratory sciences and clinical medicine.     

Jean Méry (1645–1722) and his ideas on the foetal blood flow

We present an analysis, and first full English translation, of a paper by Kant entitled ‘Über die Vulcane im Monde’ (1785). Kant became interested in the question of whether the mountains of the Moon were extinct volcanoes. Stimulated by the work of Herschel, Aepinus, and others, he considered the appearance of the Moon's surface and the possibility of lunar vulcanism. From this, he was led to consider the structures of mountain ranges on the Earth, which he decided were non-volcanic in origin, being produced by eruptions of vapours from the interior of the Earth soon after it formed from an original ‘chaos’. Kant developed his ideas in such a way as to yield a characteristic eighteenth-century ‘theory of the Earth’. We argue that the empirical base of his theory was provided by knowledge of the mountain ranges of Bohemia and Moravia. Analogies based on observations of the Moon further assisted in the construction of the theory. But the reasoning ran in two directions: what was seen on the Moon was construed in terms of what Kant knew of the Earth's topography; and the Earth's topography was presumed to be analogous to that of the Moon, for both the Earth and the Moon (and indeed all heavenly bodies) supposedly had essentially similar origins. Kant's ideas of 1785 are related to his earlier writings of 1754, 1755, and 1756, and also to the lectures on physical geography that he presented at Königsberg.     

From natural history to political economy: the enlightened mission of Domenico Vandelli in late eighteenth-century Portugal

This article presents the main features of the work of Domenico Vandelli (1735–1816), an Italian-born man of science who lived a large part of his life in Portugal. Vandelli’s scientific interests as a naturalist paved the way to his activities as a reformer and adviser on economic and financial issues. The topics covered in his writings are similar to those discussed by Linnaeus, with whom Vandelli corresponded. They clearly reveal that the scientific preparation indispensable for a better knowledge of natural resources was also a fundamental condition for correctly addressing problems of efficiency in their economic allocation. The key argument put forward in this article is that the relationship between natural history and the agenda for economic reform and development deserves to be further analysed. It is indeed a central element in the emergence of political economy as an autonomous scientific discourse during the last decades of the eighteenth century.     

Conventionalism,structuralism and neo-Kantianism in Poincaré׳s philosophy of science

Poincaré is well known for his conventionalism and structuralism. However, the relationship between these two theses and their place in Poincaré׳s epistemology of science remain puzzling. In this paper I show the scope of Poincaré׳s conventionalism and its position in Poincaré׳s hierarchical approach to scientific theories. I argue that for Poincaré scientific knowledge is relational and made possible by synthetic a priori, empirical and conventional elements, which, however, are not chosen arbitrarily. By examining his geometric conventionalism, his hierarchical account of science and defence of continuity in theory change, I argue that Poincaré defends a complex structuralist position based on synthetic a priori and conventional elements, the mind-dependence of which precludes epistemic access to mind-independent structures.     

Duhem’s theory of mixture in the light of the Stoic challenge to the Aristotelian conception

The bulk of Duhem’s writing which bears on the understanding of mixtures suggests he adopted an Aristotelian position which he opposed only to the atomic view. A third view from antiquity—that of the Stoics—seems not to be taken into account. But his lines of thought are not always as explicit as could be wished. The Stoic view is considered here from a perspective which Duhem might well have adopted. This provides a background against which his somewhat unorthodox Aristotelianism might be understood.     

Collecting airs and ideas: Priestley’s style of experimental reasoning

It has often been claimed that Priestley was a skilful experimenter who lacked the capacities to analyze his own experiments and bring them to a theoretical closure. In attempts to revise this view some scholars have alluded to Priestley’s ‘synoptic’ powers while others stressed the contextual role of British Enlightenment in understanding his chemical research. A careful analysis of his pneumatic reports, privileging the dynamics of his experimental practice, uncovers significant yet neglected aspects of Priestley’s science. By focusing on his early experimental conduct and writing on nitrous air, I demonstrate how his methodological and rhetorical devices, far from being consequences of compulsive writing or theoretical naïveté, were deeply entwined with his chemical research. I employ the notion of ‘style of experimental reasoning’ (SER)—derived from A. C. Crombie and I. Hacking—to shed light on the intersection at which Priestley’s unique method, literary style, and epistemology converged to generate scientific knowledge. Establishing Priestley’s SER advances a finer understanding of the interactive character of his pneumatic experimentalism, peculiar dimensions of which have evaded both traditional as well as revisionist scholarship, thus infusing the longstanding historiographic debate over his scientific merits.     

Sydney Chapman on the Layering of the Atmosphere: Conceptual Unity and the Modelling of the Ionosphere

Sydney Chapman is unanimously considered to have played a founding role in modern geomagnetism and to have opened up new lines of research in geophysics generally. Nevertheless, Chapman's conviction regarding the synthesis of the explanatory mechanisms of the atmosphere has gone practically unnoticed in the historiography of geophysics. This paper examines Chapman's contribution to ionospheric physics. It aims to understand Chapman's theory of ionospheric layer formation, and particularly its link to his theory of ozone formation. It deals first with the traits which characterized Chapman's personality, as a way of explaining—and even perhaps justifying— his quest for the integration and synthesis of geophysical knowledge. It then analyses Chapman's model of ionospheric layers and his suggestions regarding its use as an operational tool (without ontological connotations), before continuing with his account of the formation of the ozone layer, which seemed to constitute the missing link for understanding ionosphere layer formation. The paper concludes with Chapman's attempt to reconcile geomagnetic and radio evidence.     

The foundational aspects of Gauss’s work on the hypergeometric,factorial and digamma functions

In his writings about hypergeometric functions Gauss succeeded in moving beyond the restricted domain of eighteenth-century functions by changing several basic notions of analysis. He rejected formal methodology and the traditional notions of functions, complex numbers, infinite numbers, integration, and the sum of a series. Indeed, he thought that analysis derived from a few, intuitively given notions by means of other well-defined concepts which were reducible to intuitive ones. Gauss considered functions to be relations between continuous variable quantities while he regarded integration and summation as appropriate operations with limits. He also regarded infinite and infinitesimal numbers as a façon de parler and used inequalities in order to prove the existence of certain limits. He took complex numbers to have the same legitimacy as real quantities. However, Gauss’s continuum was linked to a revised form of the eighteenth-century notion of continuous quantity: it was not reducible to a set of numbers but was immediately given.     

Geometry of Light and Shadow: Francesco Maurolyco (1494–1575) and the Pinhole Camera

In his Theoremata de lumine, et umbre (1521), Francesco Maurolyco (1494–1575) discussed, inter alia, the problem of the pinhole camera. Maurolyco outlined a framework based on Euclidean geometry in which he applied the rectilinear propagation of light to the casting of shadow on a screen behind a pinhole. We limit our discussion to the problem of how the image behind an aperture is formed, and follow the way Maurolyco combined theory with instrument to solve the problem of the projection of light through small apertures. We show that Maurolyco not only reformed the classical sources which, he thought, were no longer the authoritative code of textual knowledge, but also established with the dioptra a novel linkage of method, theory, and instrument. He thereby demonstrated the importance of optics to the science of astronomy.