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"The book's major parts, one on polarity and the other on analogy,
introduce the reader to the patterns of thinking that are
fundamental not only to Greek philosophy but also to classical
civilization as a whole. As a leading classicist in his own right,
Lloyd is an impeccable guide. His sophistication in adducing
anthropological parallels to Greek models of polarity and analogy
broadens his perspective, making him a forerunner in the study of
what we are now used to calling semiotics. A striking example of
Lloyd's approach is his re-examination of the dichotomy of Olympian
and chthonian gods in ancient Greek world view, which surpasses the
reductionist and pseudo-historical models of sky-gods and
earth-goddesses that are still commonly invoked to account for
polarities in Greek pantheon. "In the second part, dealing with
analogy, three crucial metaphorical models for the universe turn
out to be basis for a dazzlingly wide variety of scientific and
philosophical perspectives. Each model is tested in the whole
spectrum of Greek artistic, philosophical and scientific thought.
This work is a treasure-house of insights for experts and non
experts alike." --Gregory Nagy, Harvard University
From the 90 or so articles he has published in the last two decades
Professor Lloyd has chosen fifteen of the most important and
influential to be reprinted in this collection. They tackle a wide
range of problems in ancient Greek and Chinese thought, focussing
especially on science but including also medicine, mathematics,
philosophy and mythology. Three common themes recur: the ancients'
own concern with disciplinary boundaries, their engagement in
polemics, and the heterogeneity of different traditions -
cultivating different styles of reasoning with different results -
in ancient science. Alongside papers that deal with technical
issues in the interpretation of our sources, others raise strategic
questions to do with the institutional framework of ancient
science, the role of literacy in its development, and the
underlying ontological and epistemological presuppositions of
different groups of ancient investigators. The collection closes
with a study in which Lloyd sets out how he sees the further
comparative study of ancient science developing. Two of the
articles appear here for the first time in English. The others are
reprinted in their original form. Supplementary bibliographies are
added referring to the most recent scholarship on the issues
discussed.
This study of the origins and progress of Greek science focuses
especially on the interaction between scientific and traditional
patterns of thought from the sixth to the fourth century BC. It
begins with an examination of how particular Greek authors deployed
the category of "magic," sometimes attacking its beliefs and
practices; these attacks are then related to their background in
Greek medicine and philosophical thought. In his second chapter
Lloyd outlines developments in the theory and practice of argument
in Greek science and assesses their significance. He next discuses
the progress of empirical research as a scientific tool from the
Presocratics to Aristotle. Finally, he considers why the Greeks
invented science, their contribution to its history, and the
social, economic, ideological and political factors that had a
bearing on its growth.
G.E.R. Lloyd's wide-ranging and historical study of the development
of Greek science is a valuable contribution to current debates in
the philosophy of language, on the analysis of scientific
revolutions, and the rationality of science.
How were the aims of philosophy and the responsibilities of
philosophers conceived in ancient Greece and China? How were the
learned elite recruited and controlled; how were their speculations
and advice influenced by the different types of audiences they
faced and the institutions in which they worked? How was a yearning
for invulnerability reconciled with a sense of human frailty? In
each chapter of this fascinating analysis ancient Greek and Chinese
ideas and practices are used as a basis for critical reflections on
the predicaments we continue to face today, with a particular focus
on the key Greek ideas of the equal participation of all citizens
in the political process, and on the key Chinese one of a
dedication to the ideal of the welfare of all under heaven
Although there is no exct equivalent to our term "science" in Greek, Western science may still be said to originate with the Greeks. In this volume, the author discusses the fundamental Greek contributions to science, drawing on the rich literary and archaeological sources for the period after Aristotle. Particular attention is paid to the Greeks' conceptions of the inquiries they were engaged on, and to the interrelations of science and philosophy, science and religion, and science and technology. In the first part of the book the author considers the two hundred years after the death of Aristotle, devoting separate chapters to mathematics, astronomy, and biology. He goes on to deal with Ptolemy and Galen and concludes with a discussion of later writers and of the problems raised by the question of the decline of ancient science.
This book challenges the common assumption that the predominant
focus of the history of science should be the achievements of
Western scientists since the so-called Scientific Revolution. The
conceptual frameworks within which the members of earlier societies
and of modern indigenous groups worked admittedly pose severe
problems for our understanding. But rather than dismiss them on the
grounds that they are incommensurable with our own and to that
extent unintelligible, we should see them as offering opportunities
for us to revise many of our own preconceptions. We should accept
that the realities to be accounted for are multi-dimensional and
that all such accounts are to some extent value-laden. In the
process insights from current anthropology and the study of ancient
Greece and China especially are brought to bear to suggest how the
remit of the history of science can be expanded to achieve a
cross-cultural perspective on the problems.
Ancient Greece and China Compared is a pioneering, methodologically
sophisticated set of studies, bringing together scholars who all
share the conviction that the sustained critical comparison and
contrast between ancient societies can bring to light significant
aspects of each that would be missed by focusing on just one of
them. The topics tackled include key issues in philosophy and
religion, in art and literature, in mathematics and the life
sciences (including gender studies), in agriculture, city planning
and institutions. The volume also analyses how to go about the task
of comparing, including finding viable comparanda and avoiding the
trap of interpreting one culture in terms appropriate only to
another. The book is set to provide a model for future
collaborative and interdisciplinary work exploring what is common
between ancient civilisations, what is distinctive of particular
ones, and what may help to account for the latter.
Western philosophy and science are responsible for constructing
some powerful tools of investigation, aiming at discovering the
truth, delivering robust explanations, verifying conjectures,
showing that inferences are sound and demonstrating results
conclusively. By contrast reasoning that depends on analogies has
often been viewed with suspicion. Professor Lloyd first explores
the origins of those Western ideals, criticises some of their
excesses and redresses the balance in favour of looser, admittedly
non-demonstrative analogical reasoning. For this he takes examples
both from ancient Greek and Chinese thought and from the materials
of recent ethnography to show how different ancient and modern
cultures have developed different styles of reasoning. He also
develops two original but controversial ideas, that of semantic
stretch (to cast doubt on the literal/metaphorical dichotomy) and
the multidimensionality of reality (to bypass the realism versus
relativism and nature versus nurture controversies).
G. E. R. Lloyd explores the variety of ideas and assumptions that
humans have entertained concerning three main topics: being, or
what there is; humanity-what makes a human being a human; and
understanding, both of the world and of one another. Amazingly
diverse views have been held on these issues by different
individuals and collectivities in both ancient and modern times.
Lloyd juxtaposes the evidence available from ethnography and from
the study of ancient societies, both to describe that diversity and
to investigate the problems it poses. Many of the ideas in question
are deeply puzzling, even paradoxical, to the point where they have
often been described as irrational or frankly unintelligible. Many
implicate fundamental moral issues and value judgements, where
again we may seem to be faced with an impossible task in attempting
to arrive at a fair-minded evaluation. How far does it seem that we
are all the prisoners of the conceptual systems of the
collectivities to which we happen to belong? To what extent and in
what circumstances is it possible to challenge the basic concepts
of such systems? Being, Humanity, and Understanding examines these
questions cross-culturally and seeks to draw out the implications
for the revisability of some of our habitual assumptions concerning
such topics as ontology, morality, nature, relativism,
incommensurability, the philosophy of language, and the pragmatics
of communication.
The organisation of higher education across the world is one of
several factors that conspire to create the assumption that our own
map of the intellectual disciplines is, broadly speaking, valid
cross-culturally. Disciplines in the Making challenges this in
relation to eight main areas of human endeavour, namely philosophy,
mathematics, history, medicine, art, law, religion and science.
Lloyd focuses on historical and cross-cultural data that throw
light on the different ways in which these disciplines were
constituted and defined in different periods and civilisations,
especially in ancient Greece and China, and how the relationships
between them were understood, particularly when one or other
discipline claimed hegemonic status (as happened, at different
times, with philosophy, history, religion and science). He also
explores the role of elites, whether positive (when they foster the
professionalisation of a discipline) or negative (when they
restrict recruitment to the profession, when they insist on
adherence to established norms, concepts and practices and thereby
inhibit further innovation). The issues are relevant to current
educational policy in relation to the ever-increasing
specialisation we see, especially in the sciences, and to the
difficulties encountered in making the most of the opportunities
for inter- or trans-disciplinary research.
The Symposia Aristotelica were inaugurated at Oxford in 1957. They
are conferences of select groups of Aristotelian scholars from the
UK, USA and Europe, and are held every three years. In 1975 the
meeting was held in Cambridge and was devoted to Aristotle's
psychological treatises, the De anima and the Parva uaturalia. The
members of the conference discussed some of the much debated
problems of Aristotle's psychology and broached important new
topics such as his ideas on imagination. Dr Lloyd and Professor
Owen have collected and edited the papers presented to the
Symposium and provided an analytical index.
In The Ambitions of Curiosity, G.E.R. Lloyd explores the origins and growth of systematic inquiry in Greece, China, and Mesopotamia. It asks such questions as what factors stimulated or inhibited this development? Whose interests were served? Who set the agenda? What was the role of the state in sponsoring, supporting or blocking research, in such areas as historiography, natural philosophy, medical research, astronomy, technology in all those fields. How were each of those fields defined and developed in different ancient societies? How did truly innovative thinkers persuade their own contemporaries to accept their work? Three of the main themes elaborated are, first, the different routes those developments took in China, Greece and Mesopotamia; second, the unexpected results of many research efforts; and third, the tensions between state control and individual innovation and the different ways they were resolved--problems that remain in scientific research today. G.E.R. Lloyd is Chair of the East Asian History of Science Trust and Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science at the University of Cambridge. He has authored and edited numerous books including Greek Thought (Harvard, 2000) and Hippocratic Writings (Viking, 1984). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences.
In The Ambitions of Curiosity, G.E.R. Lloyd explores the origins and growth of systematic inquiry in Greece, China, and Mesopotamia. It asks such questions as what factors stimulated or inhibited this development? Whose interests were served? Who set the agenda? What was the role of the state in sponsoring, supporting or blocking research, in such areas as historiography, natural philosophy, medical research, astronomy, technology in all those fields. How were each of those fields defined and developed in different ancient societies? How did truly innovative thinkers persuade their own contemporaries to accept their work? Three of the main themes elaborated are, first, the different routes those developments took in China, Greece and Mesopotamia; second, the unexpected results of many research efforts; and third, the tensions between state control and individual innovation and the different ways they were resolved--problems that remain in scientific research today. G.E.R. Lloyd is Chair of the East Asian History of Science Trust and Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science at the University of Cambridge. He has authored and edited numerous books including Greek Thought (Harvard, 2000) and Hippocratic Writings (Viking, 1984). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences.
This book challenges several widespread views concerning
Aristotle's methods and practices of scientific and philosophical
research. Taking central topics in psychology, zoology, astronomy
and politics, Professor Lloyd explores generally unrecognised
tensions between Aristotle's deeply held a priori convictions and
his remarkable empirical honesty in the face of complexities in the
data or perceived difficult or exceptional cases. The picture that
emerges of Aristotle's actual engagement in scientific research and
of his own reflections on that research is substantially more
complex than is usually allowed.
This book challenges several widespread views concerning
Aristotle's methods and practices of scientific and philosophical
research. Taking central topics in psychology, zoology, astronomy
and politics, Professor Lloyd explores generally unrecognised
tensions between Aristotle's deeply held a priori convictions and
his remarkable empirical honesty in the face of complexities in the
data or perceived difficult or exceptional cases. The picture that
emerges of Aristotle's actual engagement in scientific research and
of his own reflections on that research is substantially more
complex than is usually allowed.
This is a wide-ranging exploration of the similarities and
differences between ancient Greek and ancient Chinese science and
philosophy, concentrating on the period down to AD 300. Professor
Lloyd studies such questions as the attitudes towards authority,
the practice of confrontational debate, the role of methodological
inquiries, the development of techniques of persuasion, the
assumptions made about causal explanation and the focus of interest
in the study of the heavens and in that of the human body. In each
case the Greek and Chinese ways of posing the problems are
carefully distinguished to avoid applying either Greek categories
to Chinese thought or vice versa. Professor Lloyd shows that the
science produced in each ancient civilisation differs in important
respects and relates those differences to the values and social
institutions in question.
This book was first published in 1991. The study of ancient science
and its relations with Greek philosophy has made a significant and
growing contribution to our understanding of ancient thought and
civilisation. This collection of articles on Greek science contains
fifteen of the most important papers published by G. E. R. Lloyd in
this area since 1961, together with three newer articles. The
topics range over all areas and periods of Greek science, from the
earliest Presocratic philosophers to Ptolemy and Galen. In each
case the article is preceded by an introduction that assesses
scholarly debate on the topic since the original publication.
Professor Lloyd also suggests modifications and developments to his
own position in the light of those debates and his own further
research.
Dr Lloyd writes for those who want to discover and explore
Aristotle's work for themselves. He acts as mediator between
Aristotle and the modern reader. The book is divided into two
parts. The first tells the story of Aristotle's intellectual
development as far as it can be reconstructed; the second presents
the fundamentals of his thought in the main fields of inquiry which
interested him: logic and metaphysics, physics, psychology, ethics,
politics, and literary criticism. The final chapter considers the
unity and coherence of Aristotle's philosophy, and records briefly
his later influence on European thought. This is a concise and
lucid account of the work of a difficult and profound thinker. Dr
Lloyd's business is only with the essentials; but he does not shirk
the difficulties which arise in their interpretation, nor does he
invest Aristotle with a spurious modernity.
G. E. R. Lloyd explores the variety of ideas and assumptions that
humans have entertained concerning three main topics: being, or
what there is; humanity--what makes a human being a human; and
understanding, both of the world and of one another. Amazingly
diverse views have been held on these issues by different
individuals and collectivities in both ancient and modern times.
Lloyd juxtaposes the evidence available from ethnography and from
the study of ancient societies, both to describe that diversity and
to investigate the problems it poses. Many of the ideas in question
are deeply puzzling, even paradoxical, to the point where they have
often been described as irrational or frankly unintelligible. Many
implicate fundamental moral issues and value judgements, where
again we may seem to be faced with an impossible task in attempting
to arrive at a fair-minded evaluation. How far does it seem that we
are all the prisoners of the conceptual systems of the
collectivities to which we happen to belong? To what extent and in
what circumstances is it possible to challenge the basic concepts
of such systems? Being, Humanity, and Understanding examines these
questions cross-culturally and seeks to draw out the implications
for the revisability of some of our habitual assumptions concerning
such topics as ontology, morality, nature, relativism,
incommensurability, the philosophy of language, and the pragmatics
of communication.
From the 90 or so articles he has published in the last two decades
Professor Lloyd has chosen fifteen of the most important and
influential to be reprinted in this collection. They tackle a wide
range of problems in ancient Greek and Chinese thought, focussing
especially on science but including also medicine, mathematics,
philosophy and mythology. Three common themes recur: the ancients'
own concern with disciplinary boundaries, their engagement in
polemics, and the heterogeneity of different traditions -
cultivating different styles of reasoning with different results -
in ancient science. Alongside papers that deal with technical
issues in the interpretation of our sources, others raise strategic
questions to do with the institutional framework of ancient
science, the role of literacy in its development, and the
underlying ontological and epistemological presuppositions of
different groups of ancient investigators. The collection closes
with a study in which Lloyd sets out how he sees the further
comparative study of ancient science developing. Two of the
articles appear here for the first time in English. The others are
reprinted in their original form. Supplementary bibliographies are
added referring to the most recent scholarship on the issues
discussed.
This original and lively book explores Greek ideas about health and
disease and their influence on Greek thought. Fundamental issues
such as causation and responsibility, purification and pollution,
mind-body relations and gender differences, authority and the
expert and who can challenge them, reality and appearances, good
government, happiness, and good and evil themselves are deeply
implicated. Using the evidence not just from Greek medical theory
and practice but also from epic, lyric, tragedy, historiography,
philosophy, and religion, G. E. R. Lloyd offers the first
comprehensive account of the influence of Greek thought about
health and disease on the Greek imagination.
This original and lively book uses texts from ancient medicine, epic, lyric, tragedy, historiography, philosophy, and religion to explore the influence of Greek ideas on health and disease on Greek thought. Fundamental issues are deeply implicated: causation and responsibility, purification and pollution, the mind-body relationship and gender differences, authority and the expert, reality and appearances, good government, and good and evil themselves.
Did science and philosophy develop differently in ancient Greece and ancient China? If so, can we say why? This book consists of a series of detailed studies of cosmology, natural philosophy, mathematics and medicine that suggest the answer to the first question is yes. To answer the second, the author relates the science produced in each ancient civilization first to the values of the society in question and then to the institutions within which the scientists and philosophers worked.
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