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This landmark book represents the first attempt in two decades to survey the science of the ancient world, the first attempt in four decades to write a comprehensive history of medieval science, and the first attempt ever to present a full, unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. In The Beginnings of Western Science , David C. Lindberg provides a rich chronicle of the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers to the late-medieval scholastics.

Lindberg surveys all the most important themes in the history of ancient and medieval science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. He synthesizes a wealth of information in superbly organized, clearly written chapters designed to serve students, scholars, and nonspecialists alike. In addition, Lindberg offers an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe. And throughout the book he pays close attention to the cultural and institutional contexts within which scientific knowledge was created and disseminated and to the ways in which the content and practice of science were influenced by interaction with philosophy and religion. Carefully selected maps, drawings, and photographs complement the text.

Lindberg's story rests on a large body of important scholarship produced by historians of science, philosophy, and religion over the past few decades. However, Lindberg does not hesitate to offer new interpretations and to hazard fresh judgments aimed at resolving long-standing historical disputes. Addressed to the general educated reader as well as to students, his book will also appeal to any scholar whose interests touch on the history of the scientific enterprise.

Innehållsförteckning levererad av Syndetics

• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• 1 Science and Its Origins What Is Science?
• Prehistoric Attitudes toward Nature Babylonian and Egyptian Science
• 2 The Greeks and the Cosmos
• The World of Homer and Hesiod
• The First Greek Philosophers
• The Milesians and the Question of Ultimate Reality
• The Problem 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
• 8 Science in Islam Learning and Science in Byzantium
• The Eastward Diffusion of Greek Science
• The Birth, Expansion, and Hellenization of Islam Translation of Greek Science into Arabic
• The Islamic Response to Greek Science
• The Islamic Scientific Achievement
• The Decline 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
• The Heavens
• The Terrestrial Region
• The Greek and Islamic Background to Western Astronomy
• Astronomy in the West Astrology
• 12 The Physics of the Sublunar Region Matter, Form, and Substance Combination and Mixture Alchemy Change and Motion
• The Nature of Motion
• The Mathematical Description of Motion
• The Dynamics of Local Motion
• The 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 Debate
• The Medieval Scientific Achievement
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index