This book review assignment was due today, and the other book I had originally chosen still wasn’t finished reading; it seemed I wouldn’t have time, so I dug out this thinner book I had read before and wrote up a filler submission. If the TA is willing to wait a few more days, I might write another book review and hand that in instead……
G•E•R•Lloyd: Early Greek Science—From Thales to Aristotle, translated by Sun Xiaochun, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, December 2004
Ancient Greece is the source and beginning of science. There is no doubt that research on the history of science and technology in ancient Greece is of great significance for discussions of the general history of science, philosophy of science, questions of demarcation, East-West comparisons of science, and other such topics.
The author of this book, Professor Lloyd of Cambridge University in Britain, is precisely an expert on the history of ancient Greek science, and this little book of his offers an initial and illuminating exploration of the features of early Greek science and its relations to philosophy, culture, society, and the economy.
As the author states in the preface, “science” is a modern concept, and in ancient Greece there is no term corresponding to the modern word “science.” Therefore, the author suggests using “Greek science” as a “shorthand” for the ideas and theories of ancient authors.
Yet here Lloyd is, after all, evading the problem: why is it possible to directly match those ancient Greek ideas and theories with modern “science”? Why are those ancient Greek ideas and theories of the same lineage as modern science? If those ancient Greek theories can be called science, then did the ancient East also possess a tradition of science? Put simply: what, exactly, are the distinctive features of Greek “science” as the origin of modern science?
In fact, this is precisely the question the author addresses in this book. In Chapter One, in his discussion of “background and beginnings,” Lloyd points out that the two important features that make ancient Greek natural philosophy distinctive are: “the discovery of nature” and “the activity of rational criticism and debate.” (p. 7)
However, although this so-called “activity of rational criticism and debate” is indeed crucial, it was equally lively in the “axial age” of ancient China and ancient India. So why was science cultivated uniquely in ancient Greece? What was distinctive about the critical and disputational activity of ancient Greece? Lloyd also mentions that the achievement of the early Greek philosophers lay in the rational activities of criticism and debate that they inaugurated after rejecting supernatural explanations of natural phenomena (see p. 12). It is clear, then, that in the end, “the discovery of nature” is the key.
By “the discovery of nature,” Lloyd means “understanding how to distinguish ‘nature’ from ‘supernature,’” recognizing that natural phenomena are regular and governed by certain causal relations—in other words, “leaving the gods out of it.” Yet although Lloyd argues that “although theological notions often occur in their cosmologies, supernatural forces play no role in their explanations,” his explanation still seems vague—what, exactly, is “supernatural”? This is a modern term. For many ancient Greek philosophers, the cosmos itself was divine, and they never clearly distinguished between natural forces and divine forces.
Unlike Lloyd, the historian Collingwood focuses not on the division between nature and gods, but on the distinction between nature and artifice. However, this distinction still does not hit the mark in stating the essence of “the discovery of nature,” but Collingwood does remind us that Lloyd’s discussion of “the discovery of nature” has not taken into account the different meanings of the word “nature” in ancient Greece. In fact, in the early Greek period, the word “nature” never had the modern sense of “the natural world,” “the aggregate of natural things,” or anything similar. Its primary, indeed virtually its only, meaning was the secondary sense that the word still has today: “nature” as in “natural,” that is, the sense found in the Chinese expression 自然而然. In Aristotle’s terms, it refers to “the essence of things that have the source of motion in themselves.”
The distinction Lloyd points to between nature and supernature remains the most important feature. However, the rejection of supernature here does not mean a rejection of religion or theology, but rather a mode of inquiry that seeks the source of motion and change within things themselves rather than from outside them—that is, “nature” as “essence” or “inherent character.”
It is worth adding that, whether Lloyd or Collingwood, both perhaps noticed—but did not explicitly state—another crucial point: another of the most important features of ancient Greek philosophy is “the belief that the world is knowable and can ultimately be understood.” What Lloyd discusses as the distinction between nature and supernature probably really means that “nature is understandable,” rather than elusive and beyond human grasp.
In the Physics, when Aristotle analyzes the number of “principles,” he says: “(The principles) cannot be infinite in number, for if they were infinite, being would be unknowable.” (189a14) — Aristotle uses the claim that “being cannot be unknowable” to refute the claim that principles are infinite. But why must being be knowable? Aristotle does not provide a detailed argument. In fact, “knowable” is less a deduction from Aristotle’s philosophical system than an original conviction that led him to devote himself to philosophical speculation in the first place.
Plato also mentions at the end of the Timaeus that the cosmos itself has become a visible living being: “…it is a visible god.” Here, “visible” means “understandable”; Plato praises this world as “an intelligible god, most great and most good, most just and most beautiful.” (see p. 71) This is utterly different from the modern Western notion of “God,” which is closely associated with supernature and unknowability.
Like modern people, ancient Greek philosophers also overestimated human cognitive capacity; yet the endless technological development driven by modern people’s arrogance has plunged humanity into environmental crisis and a loss of values. Is this caused by the nature of science? The fault lies not with science, but with our forgetting science’s original pursuit! Teacher Wu Guosheng points out: the rational spirit upheld by science today is not the healthy rationality of the Greeks, whose sole aim was “freedom,” but “technical rationality,” whose only target is “utility.” Technical rationality is infinite rationality, but it is also one-sided rationality, because it has abandoned the dimension of reason’s “intrinsic ends.” It is a rationality of boundless expansion without purpose. (Science of Freedom, Fujian Education Press, 2002, p. 3) — For what do we do scientific research? For what do we explore nature? For modern people, the purpose of science is to bring about useful technologies and improve material life; exploring nature is for the conquest of nature and the acquisition of resources from nature. These may seem to have clear aims, but in fact they have lost their direction.
By contrast, ancient Greek scientific inquiry seems to have had no “purpose.” Aristotle says: “Clearly, we do not seek wisdom for any other advantage; since man is born free for the sake of his own life, not for the life of others, we regard philosophy as the only free study and pursue it deeply, and this is indeed the only study established for its own sake.” (982b26~28) — “Seeking knowledge is human nature.” (980a22)
This kind of pursuit that seems to be no pursuit at all is precisely the most exalted of all. Aristotle says: “Those studies that can grasp the ultimate end to which each thing must come are necessarily superior to those secondary studies; this ultimate end, in each particular case, is the ‘greatest good’ of a thing, and in general it is the ‘supreme good’ of the whole cosmos. All the foregoing should be attributed to the same science; this must be a science that studies first principles and causes; ‘the good,’ that is, the ‘ultimate end,’ is itself one of the causes.” (982b8 ff.) Plato also says: “We should trace this divine cause in all things, so as to attain the happy life that our nature requires.” (Timaeus, 69A)
This book also gives particular attention to the motives and purposes of different early Greek writers in their research. The author explicitly states: “Plato and Aristotle believed that the pursuit of knowledge is itself an end, indispensable to the perfect life, for two reasons: first, human beings differ from animals in that they possess reason, so the cultivation of rational faculties is essential to true happiness and true virtue; second, the study of nature reveals the beauty and order of the cosmos, and reflection on this helps human beings develop an ordered and noble character in themselves.” (p. 128)
However, Lloyd immediately points out: “Although other ancient authors had the same ideas, one cannot therefore assume that the beliefs and attitudes of Plato and Aristotle were shared by their contemporaries, or even that they were shared by those who engaged in natural research.” (p. 128)
In this book, Lloyd spends considerable effort trying to refute comments like the one I have just mentioned regarding the fundamental difference in spirit between ancient Greek science and modern science. He says: “Historians of ancient science often argue that one important difference between ancient and modern science is that ancient scientists sought only to understand nature and were not interested in controlling or exploiting it. In general this is probably true, but such a view fails to notice that ancient authors engaged in the study of nature were also individuals of very different kinds. Although the philosopher’s ideal was the leisurely life devoted to ‘contemplation,’ many early Greek physicians took pride in practicing a craft.” (p. 131)
Here we see another feature of this book: the author does not merely speak about ancient Greek “science” around ancient Greek natural philosophers; more specifically, he also devotes a large amount of space to examining special fields such as “medicine.”
But the problem is, between natural philosophy and ancient medicine, which was truly the source of modern science? Even if one says that both are origins of modern science, can these two traditions really be discussed together?
Lloyd is also very clear about the distinction between the philosophical tradition and the medical tradition. He mentions: “There is one fundamental difference that does in fact distinguish most medical writers from philosophers, and it lies not in the different types of theory they advance, nor in the different methods they use, but in the different motives behind their inquiries. … Unlike philosophers, doctors have in the end a practical goal before them; as the author of On Ancient Medicine puts it, medicine is a craft, and practitioners vary in competence. The ultimate goal in the minds of doctors is in fact to cure disease.” (pp. 62–63)
Lloyd therefore uses phenomena in the field of medicine to prove that the tradition of ancient Greek science was by no means entirely pure and disinterested; ancient science also had a tradition that valued practicality and technique. He gives examples: “First, there is plenty of evidence that many ordinary people (who certainly were not scientists) valued practical crafts.” (p. 123) “Second, consider those who were themselves engaged in scientific research: there was a whole group of doctors whose main motivation was clearly not the ideal of living a contemplative life.” (p. 129)
Yet apart from “ordinary people” and “doctors,” Lloyd can hardly muster many more examples. But as just mentioned, medicine and philosophy are perhaps like science and technology, religion and art, and so on: although one cannot say there is no connection between them, they ultimately belong to two relatively independently developed traditions, so how can they be lumped together? — Although Lloyd argues that “the importance of the flourishing medical ‘profession’ for Greek science is obvious,” many of the influences he cites are mostly from the Hellenistic period or later; and if one looks only at the early Greek period, medicine clearly belongs to another independently developing tradition.
Of course, perhaps under the influence of natural philosophy, ancient Greek medicine gradually developed a tendency toward theorization and naturalization. But the fact that medicine moved out of witchcraft is not at all unique to ancient Greece, and Hippocratic humoral theory is no more advanced than the medical theoretical systems in ancient China based on yin-yang and the Five Phases. Yet neither Chinese nor ancient Greek medicine ever exerted a decisive influence on the rise of science; the convergence of the two great traditions of Western medicine and science did not begin until the modern era.
In modern times, it was not medicine (or rather alchemy) that brought about the rise of experimental science; quite the opposite, experimental science greatly influenced the development of “medical science.” But what is called medical science mainly consisted of physiology, human science, pathology, microbiology, chemistry, and so on, and there was no distinct and specialized “medical science.” Medicine itself still focused more on craft, at most with an added element of “applied science,” but in the final analysis it was still “technology”—if we need to examine science and technology separately.
Although I question the legitimacy of Lloyd’s combining the two traditions of medicine and science in a single discussion, Lloyd’s examination, beyond intellectual history, of social and economic backgrounds and the diversity of researchers’ motives is commendable. Sadly, however, perhaps because the book is limited in length, the author does not further examine the relations between ancient Greek culture, politics, religion, and other realms and science. In fact, ancient Greece’s role as the source not only of Western medicine and science but also of democracy, literature and art, myth, the Olympics, and so on is by no means accidental. Although these traditions should not be simply merged into one, their internal connections are certainly worth further sorting out and excavating, and this book’s discussion still seems too thin.
This book belongs to the “History of Science and Science Culture Series” in the “Philosopher’s Stone Series” published by Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press. The Philosopher’s Stone Series is generally quite strong in its selection and translation, but like many other books in the series, this one does not include an index. This is also a common phenomenon in the Chinese publishing world, and has already been collectively “called for” by many scholars for years, so I needn’t complain any further.
May 20, 2007
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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