You might also like

More about Science before Socrates

• Book details
• Synopsis
• Trending among others

You get 193 loyalty points

Book synopsis

In Science before Socrates, Daniel Graham argues against the prevalent belief that the Presocratic philosophers did not produce any empirical science and that the first major Greek science, astronomy, did not develop until at least the time of Plato. Instead, Graham proposes that the advances made by Presocratic philosophers in the study of astronomy deserve to be considered as scientific contributions. Whereas philosophers of the sixth century BC treated astronomical phenomena as ephemeral events continuous with weather processes, those of the fifth century treated heavenly bodies as independent stony masses whirled in a cosmic vortex. Two historic events help to date and account for the change: a solar eclipse in 478 BC and a meteoroid that fell to earth around 466. Both events influenced Anaxagoras, who transformed insights from Parmenides into explanations of lunar and solar eclipses, meteors, and rainbows. Virtually all philosophers came to accept Anaxagoras' theory of lunar light and eclipses. Aristotle endorsed Anaxagoras' theory of eclipses as a paradigm of scientific explanation. Anaxagoras' theories launched a geometrical approach to astronomy and were accepted as foundational principles by all mathematical astronomers from Aristarchus to Ptolemy to Copernicus and Galileo-and to the present day.

Book details

Book category Books in English Humanities History History: earliest times to present day

• Full title: Science before Socrates
• Author: Daniel Graham
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardback
• Number of pages: 304
• EAN: 9780199959785
• ISBN: 0199959781
• ID: 02363749
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
• Weight: 428 g
• Dimensions: 218 × 155 × 30 mm
• Date of publishing: 27. June 2013

Trending among others

---

---

---