Expanding Horizons in the History of Science: The Comparative Approach

161 Pages·2021·0.672 MB·English

by  G. E. R. Lloyd

EXPANDING HORIZONS IN THE HISTORY
OF SCIENCE
Thisbookchallengesthecommonassumptionthatthepredominant
focusofthehistoryofscienceshouldbetheachievementsofWestern
scientists since the so-called scientific revolution. The conceptual
frameworks within which the members of earlier societies and of
modernindigenousgroupsworkedadmittedlyposesevereproblems
forourunderstanding.Butratherthandismissthemonthegrounds
that they are incommensurable with our own and to that extent
unintelligible, we should see them as offering opportunities for us
torevisemanyofourownpreconceptions.Weshouldacceptthatthe
realities to be accounted for are multidimensional and that all such
accountsaretosomeextentvalue-laden.Intheprocessinsightsfrom
current anthropology and the study of ancient Greece and China
especiallyarebroughttobeartosuggesthowtheremitofthehistory
ofsciencecanbeexpandedtoachieveacross-culturalperspectiveon
theproblems.
sir geoffrey lloyd isEmeritusProfessorofAncientPhilosophy
and Science at the University of Cambridge and Senior Scholar in
Residence at the Needham Research Institute. He has authored or
editedmorethanthirtybooksandwonnumerousinternationalprizes
andmedals (DanDavid Prize, Fyssen Prize,Sarton Medal, Kenyon
Medal)forpioneeringstudiesinthecomparativehistoryofscience.

EXPANDING HORIZONS
IN THE HISTORY
OF SCIENCE
The Comparative Approach
G. E. R. LLOYD
NeedhamResearchInstitute,Cambridge
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Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781316516249
10.1017/9781009029285
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Contents
ListofFigures pagevi
Introduction 1
1 OnAspectsoftheStatusQuaestionis 8
2 Translatability,Intelligibility,Revisability 23
3 DemystifyingtheGreekMiracle 32
4 TheQuestionofCausalFactors 44
5 TheCriteriaofTheories,SimplicityforInstance 57
5a SupplementaryNoteonGreekAstronomicalModels 71
6 DefinitionsandtheProblemsofForeclosure 75
7 TheChallengeof‘Mythology’ 86
8 Elements,Processes,Substances,Stuff 95
9 HealthandDisease,IllnessandWell-Being 106
10 Mind,Body,Heart,Brain,Soul,Spirit 115
Conclusions 129
Bibliography 135
Index 148
v
Figures
5.1 Epicyclicmotion page72
5.2 Eccentricmotion 72
5.3 Thesimplestcaseoftheequivalenceofeccentric 73
andepicyclicmotions
5.4 Theinequalityoftheseasonsexplainedbytheeccentric 73
hypothesis
5.5 Theepicyclicmodelusedtoexplaintheretrogradation 74
oftheplanets
vi
Introduction
Myaim,inthissetofstudies,istoexplorehowacomparativecross-cultural
approachtothehistoryofsciencecanleadtoanexpansionofitshorizons.
Doubtshave,tobesure,frequentlybeenexpressedaboutboththelegitim-
acyandthefruitfulnessofsuchcomparisonsinthisfield.Manywouldbe
inclinedtoquestionwhetherwecantalkof‘science’atallotherthaninthe
termsofrelativelymoderndevelopmentsgoingbacknofurtherthantothe
seventeenthcentury.Forthem,theso-calledscientific‘revolution’wasnot
so much a transition as an inauguration, marking what Gellner (1973)
dubbedthe‘GreatDivide’betweenthe‘Savage’andthe‘Modern’mind.
Yetthatquicklyleadstoanaltogethertoorestrictiveviewofwhatcounts
as‘science’.1Wecannotsimplyidentifythatwithwhatcurrentlypassesas
secure knowledge in such subjects as astronomy, physics, biology and so
on,sinceresultsarealwaysrevisable,eventhoughsomeareevidentlymore
robust, less likely in fact to be revised, than others. What makes any
investigation ‘scientific’, whether in what we call the ‘natural sciences’ or
further afield, israther amatter of aims and methods, theuse of observa-
tion, classification, measurement, prediction, verification, demonstration
and experimentation to explain and understand, where understanding is
not just of what is the case, but often, though not always, of why, its
2
causes.
1 Somecommentatorshavereactedtotheloadedassociationsofbothterms,‘science’and‘modernity’,
byarguingthatfor‘thehistoryofscience’itwouldbebettertosubstitute‘thehistoryofknowledge’
(cf.Daston2017).Yetifsomeacceptancesof‘science’aretoonarrow,‘knowledge’istoobroadformy
purposes, since there aremany kinds of knowledge, knowledge by acquaintance, of a particular
personforinstance,orknowledgeofaskillsuchasridingabicycleorspeakingaforeignlanguage,
thatarenotsubjecttosystematicinvestigationandsofalloutsidemypurviewhere.Mytacticis,as
Iexplain,toshiftattentionfromresultstoaimsandmethods.
2
Itisnotofcoursethecasethateitherthetheoreticalunderstandingofthesemethodsortheirpractical
applications have remained constant, as Schickore (2017, 2018) for example notably showed for
‘experiment’.
1
2 ExpandingHorizonsintheHistoryofScience
I shall elaborate this argument in due course, but for now may remark
thatthereareplentyofexamplesfromoutsidemodernlaboratorylifethat
qualifyunderoneorothersuchrubric,whetherwearetalkingaboutfields
of inquiry thatdepend on the sustained observation and recording of the
phenomena–asinancientstudiesofeclipsesandofotherperiodiccelestial
events – or others such as the knowledge of the medicinal properties of
plantsandmineralswhichwemayassumetohavebeenbuiltupoveryears
of trial and error experiences. In the latter case this is not to say that the
conceptionof‘health’thatwasentertainedwasalwaysthesame–weshall
see in Chapter 9 that it was not. Nor should we assume that ideas of the
causalfactorsinplaywereconstant–asagainweshallseetheywerenotin
Chapter 4. But while the aims and methods of the various investigators
whomweshalldiscusscertainlydiverge,wecanuseboththosedivergences
and the commonalities between them to suggest a more comprehensive
remitforthehistoryofscience.OrsoatleastIshallclaim.
I thus see myself as joining forces with recommendations that Jardine
has recently made in the second collective volume devoted to ‘Science in
the Forest, Science in the Past’ (Jardine 2021). Drawing on the work of
Tsing (2005, cf. 2015) and Schickore (2017, 2018) especially, he proposes
invoking two maxims to guide inquiry into what he calls the ‘distant
sciences’, first a ‘common ground maxim’ (corresponding roughly to the
commonalitiesIhavejustreferredto)andsecondlya‘coherence’one.He
notesthetensionthatarisesbetweenthesetwo,thefirstoftendrawingon
ourobservers’categories,thesecondpickinguptheactors’owndivergent
notionsofcoherence,aswhenthestudyofeclipsepredictionsissetagainst
the background of the other preoccupations with signs and omens of the
Mesopotamianscribeswhocarriedthemout(seeRochberg2004,2016and
compareLehoux2012onRomanknowledge).Healsoinsiststhatitisnot
aquestionofsettingupthesetwomaximsasageneralmethodologytobe
applied uniformly across the data that interest us. Rather each has to be
applied appropriately to each set of data we endeavour to interpret. The
endresultisneverthelessamongotherthingstoprovideacritiqueofsome
of our current assumptions in the philosophy of science (which Jardine
illustrateswiththe notionof ‘lawsof nature’) as willbeamajorthemein
thestudiesIpursueinthisbook.
Thosestudiesfallintotwobroad,ifoverlapping,groups.Firstthereare
inquiriesprobingthephilosophicalandmethodologicalunderpinningsof
comparativestudies,wherethecomparisonswemayundertakemaybeof
threegeneraltypes.Firsttherearethesimilaritiesanddifferencesbetween
differentancientsocieties,thenthosebroadlybetweenancientandmodern
3
Introduction
ones,andthirdlythosewithinthelatter,whereethnographyreportsgreat
diversityincollectivitiesthatallexisttodaybuthavegreaterorlessershares
in what passes for ‘modernity’. Under what conditions and within what
limits can we claim to understand what may come across in the first
instance as radically alien ideas, beliefs, practices? When faced with such
some haveconcludedthatagenuineunderstanding isfranklyimpossible,
short of leaving our own concepts behind and identifying with those of
thoseradicalotherswhoconfrontus,‘goingnative’asthesayinggoes.On
thatviewanygivengrouporsocietycanonlybeunderstoodfromwithin,
byadoptingthestandpointofthepersonsinquestion.Ishallrehearsesome
of the arguments against agreeing with any such view. For now I may
simply note that while we often transliterate Greek and Chinese terms
when discussing Greek orChinese thought, weare not limited to talking
GreekorChinesewhendiscussingtheirideas.
Thegulfbetweendifferentsystemsofbeliefhasoftenbeendescribedin
thetermspopularisedbyThomasKuhn(1970)aspresentinguswithastark
incommensurability. Yet this too may be a misleading image. The first
pointthatshouldbeconcededisthatthereisneveranyneutralvocabulary
in which to assess any such system, let alone to arrive at a comparative
assessmentbetweenapluralityofthem.Descriptionalwaysimpliesjudge-
ment, some conceptual standpoint from which the account is made. But
thatconcessionshouldnotbetakentoimplythattranslationisimpossible,
northatattemptsatanyofourmodesofcomparisonmustnecessarilyfail.
Afterallintheparadigmaticinstanceoftheincommensurabilityoftheside
and the diagonal of the square, it is still possible to compare those two,
judging,forexample,thatthediagonalislongerthantheside,evenifthey
do not have a common measure. In the more interesting instances that
concernus,comparisoncanleadtoacritiqueofouroriginalstartingpoint
andarevisionofsomeofourinitialassumptions,includingabout‘science’
itself.
Theextremeviewthatsimplynounderstandingofothersiswithinour
reachmustandcanberejected.Ofcoursetranslationwilldependondeep
immersion in the whole context of communication of those whose lan-
guage we are trying to comprehend. Such sympathetic engagement with
contextsandunderlyingassumptionsisalwaysnecessaryevenwhenweare
not dealing with different natural languages. Understanding will further
dependonourbeingself-critical,waryoftheinapplicabilityofmanyofthe
assumptionswestartwithinourattemptstofathomwhatisgoingon.We
havetoacceptthatmuchofourcustomaryconceptualapparatusmayturn
out to be inappropriate. Not only are those concepts subject to revision,
4 ExpandingHorizonsintheHistoryofScience
but, as many before me have observed, any understanding we can claim
mustbethoughtofasmerelyprovisional.Itwillindeedbeamajorpartof
myargumentaboutthevalueofthecomparativehistoryofsciencethatit
canteachushowtogoaboutsuchrevisions.
Thesecondgroupofstudiesexploreswhatwecanlearnfromparticular
encounters with substantive beliefs and practices, those recorded in the
evidence for ancient peoples and those reported in contemporary
anthropological fieldwork. The ancient Greeks, Chinese, Babylonians,
Indians and others produced an extraordinary wealth of ideas relating to
every aspect of life and of the environment in which it was lived. So too
ethnographyyieldsmuchfurthermaterialforinvestigation.Thechallenge
is, as I said, to make sense of these rich sources, some of them initially
strikingly counter-intuitive. And the aim is not just to try to understand,
butalsotolearnfromandapplywhatwehaveunderstood.Intheprocess
we can expand our notion of what humans have shown themselves to be
capableof,andthatrealisationinturnprovokesreflectionbothonhuman
diversityandonwhatweappeartohaveincommon.
Weshall,alongtheway,encountermanyexamplesofexceptionality,of
individualsandofgroups,inancientandinmoderntimes.Butitwasasthe
humanstheywereandare,livinginthecollectivitiesinquestion,thatthey
producedtheoriginal ideastheydid.Thetask of thehistorianistomake
sense of the factors that were in play, those that favoured, shaped or
impeded that productivity, difficult as it is to pinpoint those and to be
confidentoftheirinfluence.Wemaygreetgeniuswhenweseeit,butthat
israthertoidentifyaproblem,nottosolveit.Giventhedifficultiesweface,
we must accept that their resolution often eludes us. But where some
success can be claimed, the rewards indeed are high. We can use our
variousmodesofcomparison,includingbetweenthepastandthepresent,
the better to understand the present and see where we may be headed in
3
future.
So let me now summarise the main argument that will provide the
guiding thread in the studies that follow. In its European origins the
historyofnaturalscienceasanacademicdisciplinewasmarkedbydistinct
positivist traits, a sense of the onward and upward, indeed linear and
continuous, advance towards current knowledge that was or soon would
beincommandofthetruth.Oneofthebattlesthathadtobefoughtwasto
3 Thisisnot‘presentism’,wherethepastisjudgedbycriteriaprovidedbywhatisacceptedascurrent
knowledge. Rather the aim is to use historical and other resources to critique those criteria, to
challengeratherthantovindicatethepresent.