The Physical World Of Late Antiquty PDF
Preview The Physical World Of Late Antiquty
THE PHYSICAL WORLD OF LATE ANTIQUITY By the same Author THE PHYSICAL WOPLD OF THE GREEKS PHYSICS OF THE STOICS S. SAMBURSKY THE PHYSICAL WORLD OF LATE ANTIQUITY Princeton University Press Princeton, New Jersey Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 Copyright (E) 1962 by S Sambursky All rights reserved First Princeton Paperback printing, 1987 LCC ISBN 0-691-08476-9 ISBN 0-691-02410-3 (pbk.) Reprinted by arrangement with Routledge &• Kegan Paul Ltd., Great Britain Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Paperbacks, while satisfactory for personal collections, are not usually suitable for library rebinding Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey CONTENTS PREFACE page vii INTRODUCTION xi I SPACE AND TIME ι. Absolute and relative space ι 2. Absolute and relative time 9 3. Time and change 14 II MATTER 1. The mechanistic theory: conceptual developments 2 χ 2. Plato's geometrical theory and Aristotle's objections 29 3. The qualitative theory 34 4. Neo-Platonic revival of the geometrical theory 44 III SUBLUNAR MECHANICS 1. The laws of motion 62 2. The impetus 70 3. Natural motion and weight 76 4. Motion of continuous masses 89 5. Perturbations 93 IV MODES OF PHYSICAL ACTION 1. Local action and action at a distance 99 2. Potentiality and fitness 104 3. Actualityandaction 110 4. The use of philosophical principles 117 V CELESTIAL PHYSICS 1. Xenarchus against the aether 122 2. Ptolemy: the struggle for a unitary picture 133 3. Proclus and the Ptolemaic system 145 y CONTENTS VI THE UNITY OF HEAVEN AND EARTH 1. John Philoponus and his conception o f the universe 154 2. Philoponus1 arguments and Simplicius objections 158 3. God and Nature 166 NOTES 176 SOURCES 179 INDEX OF PASSAGES QUOTED 181 GENERAL INDEX 185 vi PREFACE THE present book, in a way a continuation of my two earlier ones, describes the development of scientific conceptions and theories in the centuries following Aristotle until the close of antiquity in the sixth century A.D. From the copious literature of that period, and the works of the Aristotelian commentators in particular, I have selected and interpreted texts which are of interest for the comparative history of scientific ideas, with special emphasis on the epistemological foundations of physical theories. The sequence of the chapters is determined by methodological considerations, but each chapter is largely independent of the others, dealing with one special aspect of the subject. The material contained in some of the chapters is an extension of lectures which I gave in the spring of i960 at universities in England and the U.S.A. Relatively little has been published on the history of scientific doctrines in the later centuries of antiquity, with the exception of the relevant chapters in P. Duhem's comprehensive work Le Systeme du Monde, which appeared about fifty years ago. I cherish the somewhat immodest hope that the present book may help to change for the better the attitude of neglect towards later antiquity still shared by many classical scholars and scientists alike. It was a period which retained strong intellectual bonds with the classical past but which, in its mode of thought, was akin to a much later age. Professor S. Pines of the Hebrew University has read the manuscript and made many helpful comments, Dr. C. Broude has corrected the style, and my wife has given much care to the preparation and typing of the manuscript. To all of them I offer my sincerest thanks. INTRODUCTION I N the history of Greek science one has to distinguish between two parallel developments: on the one hand scientific achieve ments in the technical sense, comprising all the factual discoveries and inventions in mathematics, astronomy and the physical and biological sciences, and on the other hand scientific thought, aim ing at the formation of comprehensive theories and the philoso phical foundation of a scientific world-picture. The development of science proper, taken in the first sense, gathered momentum in a relatively short period and reached its apex in the third and second centuries B.C. From then on, it slowly declined and, with few exceptions, faded out after the second century A.D. At that time the two greatest scientific achievements of the Greeks— geometry and astronomy—were practically accomplished, and the same can be said of their discoveries in acoustics, optics and mechanics. Scientific thought, however, continued with uninterrupted vigour from the times of the Milesian philosophers around 550 B.C. until the last Neo-Platonists in the middle of the sixth century A.D. During these eleven hundred years, hypotheses on the creation and structure of the universe were produced, theories on the nature of space, time and matter discussed, scientific concepts formed and analysed from an epistemological and purely logical point of view, and inquiries made into such problems as causality and determinism and the nature of physical action. The main contributors to scientific thinking were not the great scientists themselves, like Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius and Hipparchus, but rather the founders or representatives of philosophical sys tems of thought, men like Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and Chrysippus, and in late antiquity the Neo-Platonists. It is worth remembering that of these men only Aristotle, who made the most important contribution to the picture of the cosmos, was also an outstanding scientist, in the field of biology. Thus in antiquity the two types of scientific activity did not merge into a single stream as they have gradually done in modern ix INTRODUCTION times, since Galileo and Newton. From the seventeenth century on, systematic experimentation and the mathematization of physics were the two main factors which in the physical sciences led to the crystallization of a more or less consistent system of knowledge out of an ever-growing wealth of factual discoveries and the various attempts at a theoretical foundation. To an ever- increasing degree, leading scientists themselves share in the synthesis of the picture of the physical world, having taken the lead from the philosophers in the epistemological investigation of scientific concepts. In ancient Greece the scope of experimental research remained restricted because the Greeks, with very few exceptions, failed to take the decisive step from observation to systematic experimentation. Thus hardly any links were formed between the few branches of science which developed, and they did not expand sufficiently to produce a coherent and inter dependent system. The body of scientific knowledge in antiquity did not reach the critical mass necessary to induce the great scientists themselves to make an attempt at the construction of a theoretical framework which would unite the results of their own research and that of other branches of science. In view of these serious shortcomings it is astonishing to what an extent arbitrariness was reduced by the extraordinary flair of the Greek mind for rational speculation in the right direction. Greek scientific thinking elaborated in a qualitative, non-mathe- matical way two main patterns which became precursors of the basic trends in modern physical thought: continuum theory and atomism. The scientific world-picture of Aristotle, an all-embra cing theory loosely related to experience and built on a few theoretical assumptions which were derived in part from earlier conceptions, became dominant in Greek and medieval thought. In fact, it is one of the three major world views in the history of science, being followed after a long interval by that of Newton which has since been replaced by that of relativity and quantum physics. Although the Aristotelian picture of the universe out lived its ancient rival systems, several of its conceptions and assumptions underwent notable modifications during the more than eight hundred years from Aristotle until the closure of the Academy in Athens by Justinian. These changes, the subject of the present book, are of great significance for the history of science, for several reasons. In the χ
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