In Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in Its Contexts, renowned scholars address questions about what the ancient science of the heavens was and the numerous contexts in which it was pursued.

In the first part of chapter 2 of book II of the Physics Aristotle addresses the issue of the difference between mathematics and physics. In the course of his discussion he says some things about astronomy and the ‘ ‘ more physical branches of mathematics”. In this paper I discuss historical issues concerning the text, translation, and interpretation of the passage, focusing on two cruxes, the first reference to astronomy at 193b25–26 and the reference to the more physical branches at (...) 194a7–8. In section I, I criticize Ross’s interpretation of the passage and point out that his alteration of has no warrant in the Greek manuscripts. In the next three sections I treat three other interpretations, all of which depart from Ross's: in section II that of Simplicius, which I commend; in section III that of Thomas Aquinas, which is importantly influenced by a mistranslation of, and in section IV that of Ibn Rushd, which is based on an Arabic text corresponding to that printed by Ross. In the concluding section of the paper I describe the modern history of the Greek text of our passage and translations of it from the early twelfth century until the appearance of Ross's text in 1936. (shrink)

Lengthy review of the 2020 Brill Companion to Hellenistic Astronomy with special reference to Neoplatonism.

: The Hellenistic reception of Babylonian horoscopic astrology gave rise to the question of what the planets really do and whether astrology is a science. This question in turn became one of defining the Greco-Latin science of astronomy, a project that took Aristotle's views as a starting-point. Thus, I concentrate on one aspect of the various definitions of astronomy proposed in Hellenistic times, their demarcation of astronomy and physical theory. I explicate the account offered by (...) Geminus and its subordination of astronomy to arguments made in physical theory about what really is the case. I then show how Ptolemy treats the same topic but maintains that this science is sufficient on its own to determine the realia it studies. In this way, I identify two moments in an obvious process of intellectual change that had profound consequences for the history of astronomy and cosmology over the next 1500 years. My hope is that this will advance our understanding of the reception of horoscopic astrology in Hellenistic times and also serve to locate Ptolemy more fully in his intellectual context. (shrink)

The idea of Greek influences on Hellenistic Judaism appears to be so deeply engrained within modern scholarship that nothing could upset this apple cart, at least as reflected in two recent books on various aspects of magic, astronomy, and medicine in Jewish sources from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The usual frame of reference relies upon paradigms clearly outlined by Saul Lieberman and Martin Hengel, that Greek culture and science had penetrated Jewish thinking to such an extent, (...) that even Hebrew and Aramaic texts from Qumran or the Mishnah were eventually integrated into an undefined Hellenistic-Greek Jewish episteme. The present review article advocates an alternative Near Eastern context for Jew- ish writings in the period, one that did not reflect Hellenism in any form. (shrink)

Peter Adamson offers an accessible, humorous tour through a period of eight hundred years when some of the most influential of all schools of thought were formed. He introduces us to Cynics and Skeptics, Epicureans and Stoics, emperors and slaves, and traces the development of early Christian philosophy and of ancient science. A major theme of the book is in fact the competition between pagan and Christian philosophy in this period, and the Jewish tradition appears in the shape of Philo (...) of Alexandria. Ancient science is also considered, with chapters on ancient medicine and the interaction between philosophy and astronomy. Considerable attention is paid also to the wider historical context, for instance by looking at the ascetic movement in Christianity and how it drew on ideas from Hellenic philosophy. From the counter-cultural witticisms of Diogenes the Cynic to the subtle skepticism of Sextus Empiricus, from the irreverent atheism of the Epicureans to the ambitious metaphysical speculation of Neoplatonism, from the ethical teachings of Marcus Aurelius to the political philosophy of Augustine, the book gathers together all aspects of later ancient thought in an accessible and entertaining way. (shrink)

Peter Adamson offers an accessible, humorous tour through a period of eight hundred years when some of the most influential of all schools of thought were formed: from the third century BC to the sixth century AD. He introduces us to Cynics and Skeptics, Epicureans and Stoics, emperors and slaves, and traces the development of Christian and Jewish philosophy and of ancient science. Chapters are devoted to such major figures as Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Plotinus, and Augustine. But in keeping (...) with the motto of the series, the story is told 'without any gaps, ' providing an in-depth look at less familiar topics that remains suitable for the general reader. For instance, there are chapters on the fascinating but relatively obscure Cyrenaic philosophical school, on pagan philosophical figures like Porphyry and Iamblichus, and extensive coverage of the Greek and Latin Christian Fathers who are at best peripheral in most surveys of ancient philosophy. A major theme of the book is in fact the competition between pagan and Christian philosophy in this period, and the Jewish tradition also appears in the shape of Philo of Alexandria. Ancient science is also considered, with chapters on ancient medicine and the interaction between philosophy and astronomy. Considerable attention is paid also to the wider historical context, for instance by looking at the ascetic movement in Christianity and how it drew on ideas from Hellenic philosophy. From the counter-cultural witticisms of Diogenes the Cynic to the subtle skepticism of Sextus Empiricus, from the irreverent atheism of the Epicureans to the ambitious metaphysical speculation of Neoplatonism, from the ethical teachings of Marcus Aurelius to the political philosophy of Augustine, the book gathers together all aspects of later ancient thought in an accessible and entertaining way. (shrink)

The five hundred years from 300 B.C. to A.D. 200 were a period during which Greek science made spectacular advances and Greek philosophy underwent dramatic changes. How much did the scientists take note of the philosophical issues bearing on their pursuits? What progress did the philosophers make with methodological and theoretical issues arising out of developments in science? What influence did philosophical criticism or philosophical ideas have on specific theories in medicine or mechanics, mathematics or astronomy? These are some (...) of the questions discussed in this series of papers by the distinguished scholars who took part in the Conférence Hellenistique in Paris in 1980. The result is a broad-ranging and pioneering volume which will be of importance to scholars in the history and philosophy of science and to those whose interests lie in classical philosophy. (shrink)

The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity' is an encyclopedic compendium, probably composed in tenth-century Iraq by a society of adepts with Platonic, Pythagorean, and Shi'i tendencies. Its 52 sections ('epistles') are divided into four parts (Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, and Theology). The current volume provides an edition, translation, and notes to Epistle 3 ('On Astronomia'), which forms one of the 14 sections on Mathematics. The content is a mixture of elementary astronomy and astrology, (...) but it is not a beginner's textbook. Rather, the purpose is to use examples from those disciplines to provide spiritual, moral, and soteriological guidance. Thus the Epistle uses the argument from design to show the necessity for a Creator who made the harmonious universe; this wondrous design is then employed by the authors as a model, providing humans with a paradigm for proper ethical, political, and even economic conduct; and the study of Astronomia helps the soul achieve ultimate happiness as it seeks to throw off the shackles of this mundane world and oppressive body in favour of the purity of the celestial realm.0Although by no means typical of Islamic astronomical literature, Epistle 3 of the Brethren of Purity gives a window into a fascinating and intriguing group operating during the early period of Islam who sought to continue and adopt one of the esoteric strands of Hellenistic philosophy within an Islamic context, meshing astronomy, astrology, Platonic-Pythagorean philosophy, Quranic and Biblical quotations, and anecdotes from the lives of the Abrahamic prophets. (shrink)

The stadion is the unit of length by which distances are reported in ancient Greek geographical sources. The itinerary indications in stadia can be found in several texts, but no specific unit values are given in the ancient geographers’ surviving works. However, the notion of a vaguely quantified, non-metrological itinerary unit is contradicted by the presence, since Hellenistic times, of road marker stones bearing distance indications along major ancient roads. The key assumption in this study is that, whatever the (...) unit involved, main roads were actually measured to the best of capabilities, and distance measurements in ancient works did refer to some specific metrological system. Some well-known Greek languagecxesst sources are analyzed with the support of archeologic information obtained from a small number of pre-Roman road markers, and from modern reports of investigations about ancient roads and sites. Based on the evidence, it is shown that two different stadion values were most often used as itinerary units in the Greek and Hellenistic world, namely 177 m and 210 m, that can be traced respectively to the so-called Attic foot and Philetaeric (Ionic/Samian) foot. Conversion among units did also occur, and this may offer explanations for supposed textual inconsistencies that have so far proved hard to understand. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plato, Proclus, and the Limitations of Science S. SAMBURSKY I THE NEOPLATONICREVlV~of Plato's views on the physical world offers some highly interesting aspects to the historian of scientific ideas. There is first of all the interaction between a 600-year-old tradition and other philosophical systems that grew up during this long period and that exerted such a decisive influence on later antiquity. And there is further the magnificent development of (...) science--mathematics and astronomy in particular--in the period following Plato, reaching its climax in the Hellenistic era. This development introduced profound changes in the scientific world picture by adding a wealth of new facts to astronomy, mechanics, optics, and biology, and thus facing the later disciples of Plato with a difficult alternative : They could either assume an orthodox attitude by doubting the facts or at least belittling their significance for the Platonic doctrine; or else they could compromise by attempting to interpret the facts in the Platonic spirit--doing so by availing themselves of the well-known expedient of reading between the lines of the master's writings. It can, of course, not be denied that everything Plato has written on the physical world and on scientific cognition will always be, as it has been in antiquity, subject to interpretations. The task of a Platonic commentator is made even more difficult by his poetic style, his predilection for allegory, and his frequent use of allusions at the very moment when one expects systematic analysis. The increasing anti-metaphysical bias of modern science combined with the fact that Plato himself was neither a practicing scientist nor a creative mathematician led to the disparagement of his contribution to scientific thought in the last centuries. This applies in particular to the Timaeus,where the main tenets of PIato's scientific doctrine are expounded. However, on the whole, this negative attitude is not justified. The consistency and significance of Plato's epistemology of science is borne out by his statements in the Timaeusif they are taken together with his assertions concerning the role of mathematics in the cognition of nature and his appeal to the astronomers to "save the phenomena" of the planetary motions. Careful consideration of all these passages, regarded as a coherent whole, will show in the first place that Plato's philosophy of science does not fall short of his other great contributions to philosophy and human thought. It will further serve as a background against which the significant shift of emphasis that is found in Proclus's evaluation of the capacity of the human mind for the progressive understanding of nature will be seen. We all know of Plato's fundamental belief that the sensible world, i.e., the obiect of physical inquiry, is only an image of the inaccessible world of ideas. The intelligible world, the ultimate reality, is permanent and unchangeable, whereas [11 2 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY the material world is a world of transience and change. Every possible description of the physical world is therefore by necessity only a plausible story, not rising above the level of probability. This is the background of the celebrated passage in the Timaeus (29 C) : If then.., we prove unableto render an accountat all points entirely consistentwithitself and exact,you must not be surprised.If we can furnish accountsno less likely than any other, we must be content,rememberingthat I who speak and you my judges are onlyhuman, and consequently it is fittingthat we should, in these matters, accept the likelystory and look for nothingfurther. Here science has once and forever been assigned a place below the absolute truth, in view of the transient nature of the physical world and the role of the sensible world as an image of truth. Can some assertion be made as to the essence of this image? What is the ontological significance of all the changes and transmutations and what is the mechanism of that permanent generative process whose various components blend into the one perceptible unit which we call "nature"? Plato's answer is given in his allegory of the struggle between Reason and Necessity (Timaeus 48 A) : "The generation of this universe was a mixed result of the combination... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 125-126 [Access article in PDF] Sextus Empiricus. Against the Grammarians (Adversos Mathematicos I). Introduction, Commentary, and Translation by D. L. Blank. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. lvi + 436. Cloth, $105.00. Sesto Empirico. Contro gli astrologi. Introduction, Commentary, and Translation by Emidio Spinelli. Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000. Pp. 230. Paper, L. 70.000. No historian of philosophy should be retailing the old canards (...) that the Hellenistic philosopher Sextus Empiricus was silly, wholly confused, or merely a compiler and not a philosopher in his own right. These translations and commentaries, along with the recent work of Richard Bett, James Hankinson, and others, should bury those notions forever.Against the Grammarians is the first and Against the Astrologers is the fifth volume of Sextus's six-volume Against the Teachers of the technai or professional arts and sciences (grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, and music). Sextus is not against all forms of the study of these matters; in fact, one of the skeptic's "rules for living" is that he will engage in an art (techne) to make a living (Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.24). But he is against the claims of each of them to special technical expertise. He prefers the unpretentious experience of everyday life—living by the phenomena; non-expert, practical forms of grammar, astronomy, music—to fancy theories about the nature of things.Against the Grammarians is Sextus's critique of the interpreters of poetry and prose—today's English professors and historians. Philosophers will be amused by his deconstruction of various sorts of lit crit arrogance and rashness that are still with us. Regrettably, some of us are not immune from the same critiques.Against the Astrologers is Sextus's critique of the Chaldean soothsayers. He is not against the observation of celestial phenomena for agricultural or navigational purposes. His critiques of the astrologers for lack of empirical evidence and promotion of superstition make him sound like a proto-scientist.One originality of Sextus's work was his combination of a dogmatic Epicurean critique of the grammatologists and astrologers with a skeptical aporetic critique. Precisely because he does not hesitate to make use of the arguments of others, some interpreters have decided that Sextus was unoriginal and derivative. But Blank and Spinelli both show that he recombines these arguments in ways that no one else had done. That is one of the ways of being original in philosophy. The upshot is that he is our earliest source of quite a number of critiques of grammarians and astrologers.The use of dogmatic arguments raises the problem of whether Sextus engages in so-called "negative dogmatism" in these volumes. Right at the beginning of Against the Astrologers, Sextus accuses them of violating "right reason." What right does a skeptic have to invoke such a standard? Some have felt that at this stage Sextus was a dogmatic skeptic, invoking one set of truths to tear down another. But that is not necessary. Blank and Spinelli explain this well with a combination of points. One, we can see the dogmatic and Epicurean attacks as clearing the ground for the following skeptical equipollence of arguments. Two, we can follow Jonathan Barnes in assuming that each claim that something has been demolished assumes the counterargument that it has been proven, so that the implied upshot is equipollence. Three, "right reason" can be the sort of unpretentious practical reasoning and living in accord with the appearances that the skeptics often claimed to live by.Spinelli and Blank provide many useful improvements over the previous English translations of these texts by Bury and the Italian translations by Russo. Blank rightly relies on Spinelli's 1995 translation and commentary on Sextus's Against the Ethicists and Spinelli rightly relies on Blank for a number of points. Spinelli supplies the Greek on facing pages of the translation; Blank does not. Spinelli also supplies five Greek zodiac charts and a beautiful print of a fifteenth-century zodiac.Neither Blank nor Spinelli unduly lionizes Sextus. They admit that... (shrink)

This book casts new light on the process that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led to a profound transformation in the study of nature with the emergence of mechanistic philosophy, the new mixed mathematics, and the establishment of the experimental approach. It is argued that modern European science originated from Hellenistic mathematics not so much because of rediscovery of the latter but rather because its “applied” components, namely mechanics, optics, harmonics, and astronomy, and their methodologies continued to (...) be transmitted throughout the Middle Ages without serious interruption. Furthermore, it is proposed that these “applied” components played a role in their entirety; thus, for example, “new” mechanics derived not only from “old” mechanics but also from harmonics, optics, and astronomy. Unlike other texts on the subject, the role of mathematicians is stressed over that of philosophers of nature and the focus is particularly on epistemological aspects. In exploring Galilean and post-Galilean epistemology, attention is paid to the contributions of Galileo’s disciples and also the impact of his enemies. The book will appeal to both historians of science and scientists. (shrink)

The Renaissance of scientific thought in twelfth-century Western culture, when alchemy was introduced into the Latin schools, was largely due to the wave of translations, mainly from Arabic into Latin, but also including translations into and from Hebrew, sometimes with vernacular languages as intermediaries. Alchemy, whose tradition had been broken in the West at the end of the Hellenistic age, gained considerable attention—albeit less than astronomy/astrology and medicine—from the twelfth-century translators, who presented Latin culture with a hitherto unknown (...) doctrine that was completely different from any other science. Alchemy, as the Latin Middle Ages received it, is the philosophical search for the agent of material perfection by means of the manipulation of base materials. It thereby united theory and practice in a way unexpected by Latin scholars. In fact, alchemy as a doctrine was inseparable from laboratory practice; and this practice so much resembled well-established craftsmen's labor that for a long period the place of alchemy in the divisio disciplinarum wavered between the mechanical and the liberal arts. (shrink)

The reception of the rational sciences, scientific practice, discourse and methodology into Arabic Islamic society proceeded in several stages of exchange with the transmitters of Iranian, Christian-Aramaic and Byzantine-Greek learning. Translation and the acquisition of knowledge from the Hellenistic heritage went hand in hand with a continuous refinement of the methods of linguistic transposition and the creation of a standardized technical language in Arabic: terminology, rhetoric, and the genres of instruction. Demonstration more geometrico, first introduced by the paradigmatic sciences-mathematics, (...) astronomy, mechanics-and adopted by philosophers embracing the cosmology of Neoplatonism, was complemented and superseded by the methods of syllogistic demonstration. Faced with the establishment of philosophy as a demonstrative science, which claimed absolute and universal knowledge, even the hermeneuti. (shrink)

Averroes defended philosophy by returning to the true Aristotle. For this purpose, Aristotle's book in which he explained the eternity, uniqueness and movement of the universe, occupied a place of special importance. But the Aristotelian philosopher had a hard time holding his own in the face of contradictions within the book and with respect to Aristotle's later works. In his early Compendium, later Paraphrase, and final Long Commentary of De Caelo, Ibn Rushd continued the efforts of the Hellenistic commentators (...) in order to integrate all the elements of his doctrine into a unified system, to harmonize his early cosmology with his later Metaphysics and to uphold his models of homocentric planetary spheres against the mathematical paradigm of Ptolemaic astronomy. By insisting throughout on demonstrative arguments based on rational principles, he asserted the philosophers' claim to irrefutable truth. (shrink)

It once seemed almost self-evident that the extraordinary progress of Greek astronomy and mathematics in the Hellenistic age were, at least in part, the result of contact with Babylonian and Egyptian culture. But, whatever they may have owed to Babylonia in the exact sciences, there is now a growing consensus that even as early as Eudoxus the Greeks had advanced beyond the point where they might have profited from Egyptian help, and it is not easy to find a (...) solid basis for the widespread Greek belief in the superior wisdom of the Egyptian hierarchy. Yet the preface to the famous Calendar for the Saite nome, P. Hibeh 27, provides circumstantial evidence that one Greek, at least, in the fourth or early third century B.C., found in Egypt an instrument for measuring the time at night which was new to him and which he may well have found impressive in its accuracy. (shrink)

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