Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T10:59:12.549Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New perspectives on ancient science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Geoffrey Lloyd
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Did science develop differently in different ancient civilisations, and if so, why? This article compares the development of medicine, mathematics and astronomy in ancient Greece and ancient China. It identifies certain significant differences in the way in which the problems were formulated and the aims and methods used to resolve them, and it relates these to the social institutions and values of the society within which the scientists work.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , April 1994, pp. 91 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

1. See, for example, Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. (1979) Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts, Sage Publications: Beverly Hills, London.Google Scholar
2.Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action, Open University Press, Milton Keynes.Google Scholar
3. See, for example, Chemla, K. (1992) Résonances entre démonstration et procédure, Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 14, 91–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. See, for example, Feyerabend, P. K. (1961) Knowledge without Foundations, Oberlin Ohio.Google Scholar
5.Feyerabend, P. K. (1975) Against Method, New Left Books, London.Google Scholar
6.Rorty, R. (1980) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press, Princeton.Google Scholar
7.Hulsewé, A. F. P. (1986) ‘Ch'in and Han Law’. In The Cambridge History of China, Twitchett, D. and Loewe, M. A. N. (Eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Vol. 1, 520–545.Google Scholar
8.Needham, J., 1956, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Vol. 2, History of Scientific Thought, pp. 232–65 (although Needham continues to use the term ‘elements’). Compare A. C. Graham (1989) Disputers of the Tao, Open Court, La Salle, Illinois, pp. 340–56.Google Scholar
9.Sivin, N. (1969) Cosmos and computation T'oung Pao 55, 1–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10.Sivin, N. (1969) Cosmos and computation T'oung Pao 55, 7.Google Scholar