Part II timetable

Paper 1
Classical Traditions in the Sciences

Paper manager: Liba Taub

Paper 1 considers a broad range of subjects across different cultures and historical periods. This course is concerned with the sciences in the ancient, medieval and early modern periods, and covers a wide geographical space, focusing on a number of different cultures. Interest will centre on concepts, methodology, apparatus, institutions and cultural transmissions of knowledge. The first lecture in each lecture course will pay special attention to issues relating to geography, institutions, languages and texts, in order to draw out links between lecture courses.

While the lectures will be organised by chronology and linguistic/cultural geographies, the intention is to examine continuities and discontinuities around themes relating to what is sometimes defined as 'classical' and 'tradition-based' or 'tradition-challenging' attempts to explain the natural world. Interest will centre on methodology, transmission and testing of knowledge, institutions and apparatus. Questions relating to epistemology, authority and community will be explored. Given the longevity of some of the 'traditions', there will be some forays into later periods, including the 19th and 20th centuries, on occasion. Why, for example, does Stephen Hawking refer to Aristotle in his latest book?

Primary source

John Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's Meteorology
Liba Taub, David Leith, Isla Fay (4 seminars, Michaelmas Term)

Over a long period of time, Aristotle's Meteorology was an important text for those interested in atmospheric, astronomical and geological phenomena, including comets, thunder and earthquakes. A number of ancient and medieval commentaries were produced on the Meteorology, by scholars with a range of interests, including John Philoponus (6th century CE). Only Philoponus' commentary on chapters 1–9 and 12 of the first book of the Meteorology has been preserved; here readers encounter a re-thinking of Aristotelian meteorology and physics, the result of Philoponus' critical engagement with Aristotle's views about the world as well as a consideration of work done by post-Aristotelian natural philosophers and mathematicians. He considers questions relating to, for example, the size of the world, the reception of warmth from the Sun and whether the Milky Way is sublunary. He pays special attention to the distinction between the apparent and the real among the phenomena of the sky.

Lectures

Thinking About Classical Traditions
Sachiko Kusukawa, Saira Malik, Liba Taub (4 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

These sessions will deal with the geography treated in Paper 1, the nature of 'traditions', issues relating to the transmission and translation of texts, and the longevity of 'classical' traditions.

Ancient Mediterranean Science
Liba Taub (4 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

These lectures are on a number of important themes in the field of ancient science, and also provide a useful background for understanding later natural philosophy. Topics include the study of 'nature', physics (including meteorology) and styles of scientific writing in antiquity (including treatise, poetry, letter and encyclopedia).

Instruments, Books and Collections
Liba Taub, Catherine Eagleton (4 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

As authors in their own right, it is hardly surprising that historians spend much of their research time in the study of texts. This course of lectures makes the case for the study of the material objects of early scientific culture: the tools used by natural philosophers, astronomers, and others, in their investigation of nature. What is a scientific instrument? What kind of histories do instruments have, and how can we study them? How was a book produced in the first two hundred years of printing? Does it make a difference to understanding how texts are read to take account of the materiality of books? Did the invention of printing transform the study of nature? What is the relationship between the history of instruments and the history of the book?

Arabic Science
Saira Malik (4 lectures, Lent Term)

These lectures will focus on the natural philosophical and mathematical traditions of medieval culture between 800 CE and 1600 CE, principally as extant in Arabic sources. The roles of transmission, translation, 'updating' and choice of genre will be explored.

Nature and Knowledge in Renaissance Europe
Sachiko Kusukawa (4 lectures, Lent Term)

From the fall of Constantinople, through Columbus' New World discoveries to Luther's challenges to Papal authority, Europe between 1450 and 1600 was punctuated by dramatic events. It is the period in which traditional narratives have identified the origins of the 'scientific revolution'. This series of lectures will problematize such a view of the period: it examines how the ancient cultures of Greece, Rome and Egypt continued to be a source of inspiration and model for many who studied the natural world; and it sets these classical interests within the context of commerce, courts and godliness. Topics discussed will include: cartography, natural history, museums, anatomy, the Lutheran and radical reformations, monsters and marvels.

Quicksilver: A Social History of Mercury
Andrew Cunningham (4 lectures, Lent Term)

Mercury has fascinated mankind more than any other mineral. The most useful of metals, it has been both friend and foe to humans. It purifies and it poisons. Fascinating to the eye, and liquid at normal temperatures, mercury is everywhere in the history of science and technology. It is in the heavens as a planet, it is in medicine for the cure of diseases, it is in chemistry for transformations, it is in instruments such as the thermometer for the measurement of nature. This short course will look at the history of man's interaction with mercury.

Preliminary reading

• The Penguin Atlas of World History, Vol. 1
• Buisseret, D, The Mapmaker's Quest: Depicting New Worlds in Renaissance Europe (Oxford, 2003)
• Cohen, IB, Album of Science: From Leonardo to Lavoisier, 1450–1800 (New York, 1980)
• Cuomo, S, Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Cambridge, 2007)
• Eco, U, The Name of the Rose (Penguin, 1983)
• Edson, E, Mapping Time and Space: How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World (London, 1997)
• Frasca-Spada, M and N Jardine, Books and the Sciences in History, Part I (Cambridge, 2000)
• Galilei, G, The Starry Messenger, tr. A van Helden (Chicago, 1989)
• Grafton, A, Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer (Harvard, 1999)
• Gutas, D, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture (Routledge, 1998)
• Jardine, L, Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution (London, 1999)
• Kieckhefer, R, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989/2000)
• Lindberg, D, Science in the Middle Ages (Chicago, 1978)
• Lloyd, G, Early Greek Science (Chatto and Windus, 1970)
• Lloyd, G, Greek Science After Aristotle (Chatto and Windus, 1973)
• Murdoch, JE, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York, 1984)
• Pedersen, O and M Pihl, Early Physics and Astronomy (Cambridge, 1992)
• Porter, R, The Scientific Revolution in National Context (Cambridge, 1992)
• Rochberg, F, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (Cambridge, 2004)
• Rossi, P, Philosophy, Technology and the Arts in the Early Modern Era, Chapter 1 (Harper, 1970)
• Schrödinger, E, Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism (Canto, 1996)
• Taub, L, Aetna and the Moon: Explaining Nature in Ancient Greece and Rome (Oregon State, 2008)
• Westman, P and D Lindberg, Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1990)
• Whitfield, P, The Mapping of the Heavens (London, 1995)

Further resources are available on CamTools