Victor J. Katz and Karen Hunger Parshall
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149059
- eISBN:
- 9781400850525
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149059.001.0001
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
What is algebra? For some, it is an abstract language of x's and y's. For mathematics majors and professional mathematicians, it is a world of axiomatically defined constructs like groups, rings, and ...
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What is algebra? For some, it is an abstract language of x's and y's. For mathematics majors and professional mathematicians, it is a world of axiomatically defined constructs like groups, rings, and fields. This book considers how these two seemingly different types of algebra evolved and how they relate. The book explores the history of algebra, from its roots in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, China, and India, through its development in the medieval Islamic world and medieval and early modern Europe, to its modern form in the early twentieth century. Defining algebra originally as a collection of techniques for determining unknowns, the book traces the development of these techniques from geometric beginnings in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and classical Greece. It shows how similar problems were tackled in Alexandrian Greece, in China, and in India, then looks at how medieval Islamic scholars shifted to an algorithmic stage, which was further developed by medieval and early modern European mathematicians. With the introduction of a flexible and operative symbolism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, algebra entered into a dynamic period characterized by the analytic geometry that could evaluate curves represented by equations in two variables, thereby solving problems in the physics of motion. This new symbolism freed mathematicians to study equations of degrees higher than two and three, ultimately leading to the present abstract era. The book follows algebra's remarkable growth through different epochs around the globe.Less
What is algebra? For some, it is an abstract language of x's and y's. For mathematics majors and professional mathematicians, it is a world of axiomatically defined constructs like groups, rings, and fields. This book considers how these two seemingly different types of algebra evolved and how they relate. The book explores the history of algebra, from its roots in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, China, and India, through its development in the medieval Islamic world and medieval and early modern Europe, to its modern form in the early twentieth century. Defining algebra originally as a collection of techniques for determining unknowns, the book traces the development of these techniques from geometric beginnings in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and classical Greece. It shows how similar problems were tackled in Alexandrian Greece, in China, and in India, then looks at how medieval Islamic scholars shifted to an algorithmic stage, which was further developed by medieval and early modern European mathematicians. With the introduction of a flexible and operative symbolism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, algebra entered into a dynamic period characterized by the analytic geometry that could evaluate curves represented by equations in two variables, thereby solving problems in the physics of motion. This new symbolism freed mathematicians to study equations of degrees higher than two and three, ultimately leading to the present abstract era. The book follows algebra's remarkable growth through different epochs around the globe.
Jed Z. Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154787
- eISBN:
- 9781400845187
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154787.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Isaac Newton’s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728, one year after the great man’s death, unleashed a storm of controversy. And for good reason. The book presents a drastically ...
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Isaac Newton’s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728, one year after the great man’s death, unleashed a storm of controversy. And for good reason. The book presents a drastically revised timeline for ancient civilizations, contracting Greek history by five hundred years and Egypt’s by a millennium. This book tells the story of how one of the most celebrated figures in the history of mathematics, optics, and mechanics came to apply his unique ways of thinking to problems of history, theology, and mythology, and of how his radical ideas produced an uproar that reverberated in Europe’s learned circles throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. The book reveals the manner in which Newton strove for nearly half a century to rectify universal history by reading ancient texts through the lens of astronomy, and to create a tight theoretical system for interpreting the evolution of civilization on the basis of population dynamics. It was during Newton’s earliest years at Cambridge that he developed the core of his singular method for generating and working with trustworthy knowledge, which he applied to his study of the past with the same rigor he brought to his work in physics and mathematics. Drawing extensively on Newton’s unpublished papers and a host of other primary sources, the book reconciles Isaac Newton the rational scientist with Newton the natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian, and chronologist of ancient history.Less
Isaac Newton’s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728, one year after the great man’s death, unleashed a storm of controversy. And for good reason. The book presents a drastically revised timeline for ancient civilizations, contracting Greek history by five hundred years and Egypt’s by a millennium. This book tells the story of how one of the most celebrated figures in the history of mathematics, optics, and mechanics came to apply his unique ways of thinking to problems of history, theology, and mythology, and of how his radical ideas produced an uproar that reverberated in Europe’s learned circles throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. The book reveals the manner in which Newton strove for nearly half a century to rectify universal history by reading ancient texts through the lens of astronomy, and to create a tight theoretical system for interpreting the evolution of civilization on the basis of population dynamics. It was during Newton’s earliest years at Cambridge that he developed the core of his singular method for generating and working with trustworthy knowledge, which he applied to his study of the past with the same rigor he brought to his work in physics and mathematics. Drawing extensively on Newton’s unpublished papers and a host of other primary sources, the book reconciles Isaac Newton the rational scientist with Newton the natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian, and chronologist of ancient history.
Charles Issawi
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195118131
- eISBN:
- 9780199854554
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118131.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
Among the forces shaping today's international landscape, those of cultural differences and conflicts are perhaps the most prominent. This collection of chapters has been written in the belief that a ...
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Among the forces shaping today's international landscape, those of cultural differences and conflicts are perhaps the most prominent. This collection of chapters has been written in the belief that a study of past encounters and conflicts between the world's major cultures can shed light on their nature and importance. Ranging in scope from the great ancient civilizations to Shelley's passion for the Middle East, from the economics of the Ottoman empire to the pre-eminence of English as an international language, this collection reflects the many interests of its author, with an emphasis on the Middle East, whose cultural conflict with the West is of concern to us today.Less
Among the forces shaping today's international landscape, those of cultural differences and conflicts are perhaps the most prominent. This collection of chapters has been written in the belief that a study of past encounters and conflicts between the world's major cultures can shed light on their nature and importance. Ranging in scope from the great ancient civilizations to Shelley's passion for the Middle East, from the economics of the Ottoman empire to the pre-eminence of English as an international language, this collection reflects the many interests of its author, with an emphasis on the Middle East, whose cultural conflict with the West is of concern to us today.
Victor J. Katz and Karen Hunger Parshall
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149059
- eISBN:
- 9781400850525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149059.003.0002
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
This chapter explores the beginnings of algebra in Egypt and Mesopotamia. They are the earliest civilizations to have left written mathematical records, and they date back thousands of years. From ...
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This chapter explores the beginnings of algebra in Egypt and Mesopotamia. They are the earliest civilizations to have left written mathematical records, and they date back thousands of years. From both, we have original documents detailing mathematical calculations and mathematical problems, mostly designed to further the administration of the countries. Both also fostered scribes of a mathematical bent who carried out mathematical ideas well beyond the immediate necessity of solving a given problem. If mathematics was thus similarly institutionalized in Egypt and Mesopotamia, it nevertheless took on dramatically different forms, being written in entirely distinct ways in the two different regions. This key difference aside, the beginnings of algebra are evident in the solutions of problems that have come down to us from scribes active in both of these ancient civilizations.Less
This chapter explores the beginnings of algebra in Egypt and Mesopotamia. They are the earliest civilizations to have left written mathematical records, and they date back thousands of years. From both, we have original documents detailing mathematical calculations and mathematical problems, mostly designed to further the administration of the countries. Both also fostered scribes of a mathematical bent who carried out mathematical ideas well beyond the immediate necessity of solving a given problem. If mathematics was thus similarly institutionalized in Egypt and Mesopotamia, it nevertheless took on dramatically different forms, being written in entirely distinct ways in the two different regions. This key difference aside, the beginnings of algebra are evident in the solutions of problems that have come down to us from scribes active in both of these ancient civilizations.
TREVOR BRYCE
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199281329
- eISBN:
- 9780191706752
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199281329.003.15
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
During the last 150 years, archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and philologists have all made substantial contributions to our knowledge of the ancient civilizations which rose, flourished, ...
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During the last 150 years, archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and philologists have all made substantial contributions to our knowledge of the ancient civilizations which rose, flourished, and fell in the land-mass extending from the Aegean coast of modern Turkey through Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia to the eastern frontiers of modern Iran. Some of these civilizations date back to the very beginnings of urban settlement in the Near East. The focus of this book is primarily on the political and military history of the Hittites, providing an important context for an investigation of the many other aspects of Hittite civilization, including religion, social customs and mores, art, and literature. The Hittite civilization was part of a continuum of human development which in Anatolia as elsewhere in the Near East extended back many millennia.Less
During the last 150 years, archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and philologists have all made substantial contributions to our knowledge of the ancient civilizations which rose, flourished, and fell in the land-mass extending from the Aegean coast of modern Turkey through Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia to the eastern frontiers of modern Iran. Some of these civilizations date back to the very beginnings of urban settlement in the Near East. The focus of this book is primarily on the political and military history of the Hittites, providing an important context for an investigation of the many other aspects of Hittite civilization, including religion, social customs and mores, art, and literature. The Hittite civilization was part of a continuum of human development which in Anatolia as elsewhere in the Near East extended back many millennia.
TREVOR BRYCE
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199281329
- eISBN:
- 9780191706752
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199281329.003.01
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
To the 19th-century scholar, Anatolia was little more than a mysterious blank in the Near East during the Bronze Age at a time when the great ancient civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt ...
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To the 19th-century scholar, Anatolia was little more than a mysterious blank in the Near East during the Bronze Age at a time when the great ancient civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt were in their prime. By the middle of the third millennium (the Early Bronze II phase), there were wealthy ruling houses and important centres of civilization in various parts of Anatolia. Relatively few of the established Early Bronze II communities survived into the final phase of the Early Bronze Age, and some scholars associate the apparent upheavals of this period with the arrival or incursions of Indo-Europeans into Anatolia. From at least as early as the time of the Akkadian empire of Sargon, the region in which the central Anatolian kingdoms lay was known as the Land of Hatti. Scholars have long assumed that the predominant population of the region in the third millennium was an indigenous pre-Indo-European group called the Hattians. The kingdom of the Hittites was founded in the early or middle years of the 17th century.Less
To the 19th-century scholar, Anatolia was little more than a mysterious blank in the Near East during the Bronze Age at a time when the great ancient civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt were in their prime. By the middle of the third millennium (the Early Bronze II phase), there were wealthy ruling houses and important centres of civilization in various parts of Anatolia. Relatively few of the established Early Bronze II communities survived into the final phase of the Early Bronze Age, and some scholars associate the apparent upheavals of this period with the arrival or incursions of Indo-Europeans into Anatolia. From at least as early as the time of the Akkadian empire of Sargon, the region in which the central Anatolian kingdoms lay was known as the Land of Hatti. Scholars have long assumed that the predominant population of the region in the third millennium was an indigenous pre-Indo-European group called the Hattians. The kingdom of the Hittites was founded in the early or middle years of the 17th century.
Filiz Peach
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748625352
- eISBN:
- 9780748652426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748625352.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter provides the relevant background knowledge that will be linked with later discussions on Karl Jaspers' existential analysis of death. It explains that the human relatedness to death ...
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This chapter provides the relevant background knowledge that will be linked with later discussions on Karl Jaspers' existential analysis of death. It explains that the human relatedness to death manifests itself in various forms, and that death awareness enables the individual to look into some fundamental questions and develop an attitude and relationship to death. The chapter describes diverse interpretations of attitudes towards death in various cultures, including some ancient civilisations.Less
This chapter provides the relevant background knowledge that will be linked with later discussions on Karl Jaspers' existential analysis of death. It explains that the human relatedness to death manifests itself in various forms, and that death awareness enables the individual to look into some fundamental questions and develop an attitude and relationship to death. The chapter describes diverse interpretations of attitudes towards death in various cultures, including some ancient civilisations.
Nam C. Kim
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199980888
- eISBN:
- 9780190268879
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199980888.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
This book is concerned with the origins of an ancient state in northern Vietnam, an area long believed to be the cradle of Vietnamese ethnic identity and civilization. This area has been referenced ...
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This book is concerned with the origins of an ancient state in northern Vietnam, an area long believed to be the cradle of Vietnamese ethnic identity and civilization. This area has been referenced by Vietnamese and Chinese writers for over a millennium, many recording colorful tales and legends. One of the most enduring accounts is story of the Au Lac Kingdom and its purported capital, known as Co Loa. According to legend, the city was founded during the third century BC, and massive rampart walls were built to protect its rulers. Over the centuries, Co Loa has become emblematic of an important foundational era for Vietnamese civilization. Today, the ramparts still stand in silent testament to the power of past societies. Using the archaeological record to complement, support, and challenge traditional textual sources, this book considers trajectories of cultural change throughout the area’s prehistory: from an era of scattered farming villages to a time when powerful societies emerged, marked by unprecedented social inequalities and consolidated forms of political power. Presented are newly gathered data indicating the founding of Co Loa by an ancient state, centuries before the area would be annexed by the Chinese Han Empire. The causal factors for these momentous developments are also considered, placing Co Loa within a wider global theoretical consideration of ancient cities, states, and civilizations. Finally, the book explores the complex relationship between the politics of the present and the material remains of the ancient past.Less
This book is concerned with the origins of an ancient state in northern Vietnam, an area long believed to be the cradle of Vietnamese ethnic identity and civilization. This area has been referenced by Vietnamese and Chinese writers for over a millennium, many recording colorful tales and legends. One of the most enduring accounts is story of the Au Lac Kingdom and its purported capital, known as Co Loa. According to legend, the city was founded during the third century BC, and massive rampart walls were built to protect its rulers. Over the centuries, Co Loa has become emblematic of an important foundational era for Vietnamese civilization. Today, the ramparts still stand in silent testament to the power of past societies. Using the archaeological record to complement, support, and challenge traditional textual sources, this book considers trajectories of cultural change throughout the area’s prehistory: from an era of scattered farming villages to a time when powerful societies emerged, marked by unprecedented social inequalities and consolidated forms of political power. Presented are newly gathered data indicating the founding of Co Loa by an ancient state, centuries before the area would be annexed by the Chinese Han Empire. The causal factors for these momentous developments are also considered, placing Co Loa within a wider global theoretical consideration of ancient cities, states, and civilizations. Finally, the book explores the complex relationship between the politics of the present and the material remains of the ancient past.
Khushwant Singh
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195673081
- eISBN:
- 9780199080601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195673081.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Sikhism
This chapter provides a detailed description of the Sikh homeland, Punjab. The beginning of the chapter presents a geographical description of the area, including its land forms and boundaries. The ...
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This chapter provides a detailed description of the Sikh homeland, Punjab. The beginning of the chapter presents a geographical description of the area, including its land forms and boundaries. The climate and landscape of the Punjab is examined, along with the various activities done during the different seasons. A brief description of the settlements and flora and fauna in the area is provided. It also explains of the origin of the name ‘Punjab’, and a discussion of the ancient Indian civilization. Indologists believe that the Indian civilization is one of the oldest in the world, and that the very centre of this civilization was in Punjab. It then looks at the Punjabis and the birth of Punjabi nationalism.Less
This chapter provides a detailed description of the Sikh homeland, Punjab. The beginning of the chapter presents a geographical description of the area, including its land forms and boundaries. The climate and landscape of the Punjab is examined, along with the various activities done during the different seasons. A brief description of the settlements and flora and fauna in the area is provided. It also explains of the origin of the name ‘Punjab’, and a discussion of the ancient Indian civilization. Indologists believe that the Indian civilization is one of the oldest in the world, and that the very centre of this civilization was in Punjab. It then looks at the Punjabis and the birth of Punjabi nationalism.
Richard J. A. Talbert
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226789378
- eISBN:
- 9780226789408
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226789408.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This book encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient ...
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This book encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In each society, maps served as critical economic, political, and personal tools, but there was little consistency in how and why they were made. Much like today, maps in antiquity meant very different things to different people. The book presents an ambitious, fresh overview of cartography and its uses. The seven chapters range from broad-based analyses of mapping in Mesopotamia and Egypt to a close focus on Ptolemy's ideas for drawing a world map based on the theories of his Greek predecessors at Alexandria. The remarkable accuracy of Mesopotamian city-plans is revealed, as is the creation of maps by Romans to support the proud claim that their emperor's rule was global in its reach. By probing the instruments and techniques of both Greek and Roman surveyors, the book uncovers how their extraordinary planning of roads, aqueducts, and tunnels was achieved. Even though none of these civilizations devised the means to measure time or distance with precision, they still conceptualized their surroundings, natural and man-made, near and far, and felt the urge to record them by inventive means that this book reinterprets and compares.Less
This book encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In each society, maps served as critical economic, political, and personal tools, but there was little consistency in how and why they were made. Much like today, maps in antiquity meant very different things to different people. The book presents an ambitious, fresh overview of cartography and its uses. The seven chapters range from broad-based analyses of mapping in Mesopotamia and Egypt to a close focus on Ptolemy's ideas for drawing a world map based on the theories of his Greek predecessors at Alexandria. The remarkable accuracy of Mesopotamian city-plans is revealed, as is the creation of maps by Romans to support the proud claim that their emperor's rule was global in its reach. By probing the instruments and techniques of both Greek and Roman surveyors, the book uncovers how their extraordinary planning of roads, aqueducts, and tunnels was achieved. Even though none of these civilizations devised the means to measure time or distance with precision, they still conceptualized their surroundings, natural and man-made, near and far, and felt the urge to record them by inventive means that this book reinterprets and compares.
Thomas Nail
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190618643
- eISBN:
- 9780190618681
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190618643.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, International Relations and Politics
This chapter develops a theory of the border structure of the wall. The wall as a border regime introduces a centrifugal social force that links together the fenced-in flows of territorial borders ...
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This chapter develops a theory of the border structure of the wall. The wall as a border regime introduces a centrifugal social force that links together the fenced-in flows of territorial borders and mobilizes them into a single central power. This power is then deployed offensively through the use of military walls, defensively through the use of rampart walls, and as a technology of passage in port walls. In particular, the wall creates a centrifugal social motion that consolidates the centripetal accumulations of the previous fence regime into a central point and redirects them outward with a new force. Historically, centrifugal motion emerges as the dominant form of motion alongside the rise of the cities and ancient empires of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, and Greece beginning around 3000 BCE, roughly during the period Gordon Childe refers to as the “Urban Revolution.”Less
This chapter develops a theory of the border structure of the wall. The wall as a border regime introduces a centrifugal social force that links together the fenced-in flows of territorial borders and mobilizes them into a single central power. This power is then deployed offensively through the use of military walls, defensively through the use of rampart walls, and as a technology of passage in port walls. In particular, the wall creates a centrifugal social motion that consolidates the centripetal accumulations of the previous fence regime into a central point and redirects them outward with a new force. Historically, centrifugal motion emerges as the dominant form of motion alongside the rise of the cities and ancient empires of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, and Greece beginning around 3000 BCE, roughly during the period Gordon Childe refers to as the “Urban Revolution.”
G. E. R. Lloyd
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780198705604
- eISBN:
- 9780191774508
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198705604.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter examines the role of debates in ancient civilizations. One key question is where it is thought that one should defer to experts, or where lay people (idiots in the original Greek sense) ...
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This chapter examines the role of debates in ancient civilizations. One key question is where it is thought that one should defer to experts, or where lay people (idiots in the original Greek sense) should determine the outcome. And if we need experts, what makes them the experts that they are? The chapter attempts a taxonomy of debates, in terms of subject matter, degree of formality, the question of who adjudicates, and what the object of the exercise may be — all with the aim of assessing the positive as well as the negative effects of controversy in the advancement of inquiry. Among the ideals in question here are those of transparency and accountability.Less
This chapter examines the role of debates in ancient civilizations. One key question is where it is thought that one should defer to experts, or where lay people (idiots in the original Greek sense) should determine the outcome. And if we need experts, what makes them the experts that they are? The chapter attempts a taxonomy of debates, in terms of subject matter, degree of formality, the question of who adjudicates, and what the object of the exercise may be — all with the aim of assessing the positive as well as the negative effects of controversy in the advancement of inquiry. Among the ideals in question here are those of transparency and accountability.
G. E. R. Lloyd
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780198705604
- eISBN:
- 9780191774508
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198705604.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
The preceding chapters focused on literate ancient civilizations and posed three interrelated questions: how various members of those societies thought one should go about investigating; what they ...
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The preceding chapters focused on literate ancient civilizations and posed three interrelated questions: how various members of those societies thought one should go about investigating; what they believed was there to be investigated; and why they considered the investigation worthwhile. This chapter seeks to broaden the scope of the discussion to tackle problems concerning human reasoning and inquiry in general. It concludes that the specifically modern manifestations of the ambition to inquire should not lead us to underestimate the commonalities with much earlier endeavours.Less
The preceding chapters focused on literate ancient civilizations and posed three interrelated questions: how various members of those societies thought one should go about investigating; what they believed was there to be investigated; and why they considered the investigation worthwhile. This chapter seeks to broaden the scope of the discussion to tackle problems concerning human reasoning and inquiry in general. It concludes that the specifically modern manifestations of the ambition to inquire should not lead us to underestimate the commonalities with much earlier endeavours.
