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597 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1992
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About the author
David C. Lindberg
21?books19?followersDavid C. Lindberg was an American historian of science. His main focus was in the history of medieval and early modern science, especially physical science and the relationship between religion and science. Lindberg was the author or editor of many books and received numerous grants and awards. He also served as President of the History of Science Society and, in 1999, was recipient of its highest prize for lifetime scholarly achievement: the Sarton medal.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
February 20, 2019
Excellent overview of the developments in science and philosophy from the period of the natural philosophers in Antiquity (starting with Thales of Miletus) and ending at the Renaissance. Lindberg puts the scientific and philosopical developments in their situational context. He continuously stresses the importance of viewing the scientific ideas within the social, cultural and religious framework that contemporaries used to understand their world. This is a very fruitful method, and it helps bring the ingenuity of certain thinkers to the fore, who would otherwise be laughed away by us 'moderns'.
Natural philosophy, mathematics and philosophy started in Anitquity, flourished for a couple of centuries, then were kept alive in the Roman period. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, these industries were maintained in the Byzantine regions and were incorporated in the later Islamic empires. The West, significantly, lacked most of the important philosophical and scientific works and only started picking up pace again when more and more translations - arabic or greek - entered Europe and were translated into Latin.
The period of the Middle Ages was the era when schools and universities as institutions were founded. It is also the period when the first steps towards the mathematization of science were taking, for example by Nicolas Oresme, who tried to apply geometrical representations to motion. (A precursor to what René Descartes would do when he invented analytic geometry.)
With the risk of abstracting too much, the early Middle Ages were characterized by Platonism and Christianity, while the later Middle Ages were characterized by Aristotelianism and Christianity. This last marriage was staged by people like Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, who tried to smoothen the rough edges that Aristotle's philosophy had - at least when trying to fit it into a Christian theological framework. Ever since Aquinas, Aristotle has been the philosopher that Christianity looks to.
This last point also explains why the Scientific Revolution can rightfully be called a revolution. Aristotle had developed a unique framework with which to understand the world, basically an axiomatix-deductive system of knowledge and a cosmology of the four elements earth, water, air and fire; a distinction between the imperfect sub-lunar and the perfect heavenly spheres; substance as a combination of matter and form; natural places; teleology; prime movers; etc. etc. Aristotelianism simply was incompatible with the empirical, inductive side of science that developed in the seventeenth century - this was a new science, a mechanistic worldview that sought to explain everything in terms of moving particles (even light) in vacui.
Lindberg deals extensively with all sorts of sciences: mathematics, cosmology, physics, astronomy, astrology, alchemy, medicine, natural history, optics, etc. He deals fairly with all of these topics. For example, he clearly explains how alchemy wasn't the quackery that we make it out to be (usually) - it was firmly grounded in Aristotle's conception of substances and complexes and was simply a logical way of thinking about the world, given the contemporary worldview and availabe knowledge. The same with astrology: this science was rooted in the Platonic conception of a microcosm-macrocosm connection - the universe as a whole is a living organism constituted of organs just like a human being is a living organism constituted of organs. This means that anything that happens in the macrocosm - for example, planetary revolutions - is interconnected with evens on a microcosmic scale, so astronomical knowledge instantaneously leads to very important insights into human affairs.
In the final chapter, Lindberg closes the book with offering a compromise between the continuity thesis (science as a continuous development) and the revolutionary thesis (science as a non-continuous development). He does this by arguing that all the events that make up the Scientific Revolution (Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, Brahe, Newton, Boyle, etc. etc.) were not totally new phenomena, but were continuations on earlier insights. So, for example, Lindberg sees sixth century philosopher Philoponus as anticipating Galileo's free fall experiments and Ptolemy's mathematical inventions as the building blocks of Copernicus' heliocentric model.
I think Lindberg is right in offering this critique, yet I do think that he slightly underestimates the radical shift in thinking that took place in the seventeenth century - and which continues up to the present moment. The mechanistic worldview simply has literally changed the world forever - its surface, the minds of people, living conditions, etc. etc. - while Aristotle's rationalistic worldview has only inspired mystics, esoterics and muddle-headed philosophers like Heidegger & co.
Anyway, this is one of the most inspiring and insightful books that I know of. Not just on the topic covered, but in general. I think Lindberg is a superb educator and a very nuanced story-teller. Read this book to understand the different ways people viewed the world from 600 B.C. to 1400 A.D. The book is a storehouse of interesting knowledge and it certainly enriches our own conceptions of the world. I find it refreshing to understand why people thought so differently about the same old subjects and how their ideas make sense, if only you get the whole picture. Beautiful!
Natural philosophy, mathematics and philosophy started in Anitquity, flourished for a couple of centuries, then were kept alive in the Roman period. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, these industries were maintained in the Byzantine regions and were incorporated in the later Islamic empires. The West, significantly, lacked most of the important philosophical and scientific works and only started picking up pace again when more and more translations - arabic or greek - entered Europe and were translated into Latin.
The period of the Middle Ages was the era when schools and universities as institutions were founded. It is also the period when the first steps towards the mathematization of science were taking, for example by Nicolas Oresme, who tried to apply geometrical representations to motion. (A precursor to what René Descartes would do when he invented analytic geometry.)
With the risk of abstracting too much, the early Middle Ages were characterized by Platonism and Christianity, while the later Middle Ages were characterized by Aristotelianism and Christianity. This last marriage was staged by people like Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, who tried to smoothen the rough edges that Aristotle's philosophy had - at least when trying to fit it into a Christian theological framework. Ever since Aquinas, Aristotle has been the philosopher that Christianity looks to.
This last point also explains why the Scientific Revolution can rightfully be called a revolution. Aristotle had developed a unique framework with which to understand the world, basically an axiomatix-deductive system of knowledge and a cosmology of the four elements earth, water, air and fire; a distinction between the imperfect sub-lunar and the perfect heavenly spheres; substance as a combination of matter and form; natural places; teleology; prime movers; etc. etc. Aristotelianism simply was incompatible with the empirical, inductive side of science that developed in the seventeenth century - this was a new science, a mechanistic worldview that sought to explain everything in terms of moving particles (even light) in vacui.
Lindberg deals extensively with all sorts of sciences: mathematics, cosmology, physics, astronomy, astrology, alchemy, medicine, natural history, optics, etc. He deals fairly with all of these topics. For example, he clearly explains how alchemy wasn't the quackery that we make it out to be (usually) - it was firmly grounded in Aristotle's conception of substances and complexes and was simply a logical way of thinking about the world, given the contemporary worldview and availabe knowledge. The same with astrology: this science was rooted in the Platonic conception of a microcosm-macrocosm connection - the universe as a whole is a living organism constituted of organs just like a human being is a living organism constituted of organs. This means that anything that happens in the macrocosm - for example, planetary revolutions - is interconnected with evens on a microcosmic scale, so astronomical knowledge instantaneously leads to very important insights into human affairs.
In the final chapter, Lindberg closes the book with offering a compromise between the continuity thesis (science as a continuous development) and the revolutionary thesis (science as a non-continuous development). He does this by arguing that all the events that make up the Scientific Revolution (Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, Brahe, Newton, Boyle, etc. etc.) were not totally new phenomena, but were continuations on earlier insights. So, for example, Lindberg sees sixth century philosopher Philoponus as anticipating Galileo's free fall experiments and Ptolemy's mathematical inventions as the building blocks of Copernicus' heliocentric model.
I think Lindberg is right in offering this critique, yet I do think that he slightly underestimates the radical shift in thinking that took place in the seventeenth century - and which continues up to the present moment. The mechanistic worldview simply has literally changed the world forever - its surface, the minds of people, living conditions, etc. etc. - while Aristotle's rationalistic worldview has only inspired mystics, esoterics and muddle-headed philosophers like Heidegger & co.
Anyway, this is one of the most inspiring and insightful books that I know of. Not just on the topic covered, but in general. I think Lindberg is a superb educator and a very nuanced story-teller. Read this book to understand the different ways people viewed the world from 600 B.C. to 1400 A.D. The book is a storehouse of interesting knowledge and it certainly enriches our own conceptions of the world. I find it refreshing to understand why people thought so differently about the same old subjects and how their ideas make sense, if only you get the whole picture. Beautiful!
February 8, 2016
Maybe I'm just a geek (OK, I am just a geek, and a history-of-science geek at that) but this was one of the most unbelievably interesting books I have ever read.
August 16, 2017
I read this both to knock it out in advance for a History of Science class and because of an intellectual interest in Aristotelianism and Aquinas; I can't recommend it enough to anyone whose knowledge of the Middle Ages consists of the ahistorical smears developed first by 16th century Protestants against their Catholic forbearers, then by Enlightenment secularists eager to scoff at the supposedly superstitious and hidebound past. The chapters on Greek philosophy are fantastic, presenting Platonism and Aristotelianism in the context they belong and explaining why they were so much more intellectually compelling to the Greeks than the Epicureanism and Stoicism that moderns find more relatable (and therefore more "correct"). Another great part of the chapters on the Greeks: the etymological tracing of the Homeric Greek word for an unpredictable universe ruled by capricious gods as "Chaos" to the first philosophers' view of a rational, orderly universe as "Kosmos"—Greek for order.
Regarding the Middle Ages, I was particularly moved by the description of the monastics and saints who desperately preserved all the knowledge they could in the shadow of a decaying empire, as their entire world splintered into chaotic violence between barbarian warlords (highlight: Isidore, who Wikipedia fittingly tells me is the patron saint of the Internet). But the renaissance of 1100 takes the cake (highlights: the Scholastics' controversial insistence that Scripture be defended with reason as opposed to blind faith, the founding of hospitals and universities, the Gothic cathedrals, everything about Albert the Great and Aquinas, and the relationship between Peter Abelard and Heloise—who named their son "Astrolabe" in honor of the cutting-edge technology, interest in outer space, and rationalistic philosophy which I'm sure everyone today associates with the year 1100).
There's so much more covered in the book than in this review (Romans, math, Islam, and medicine, among other things), but the intellectual disconnect between our civilization (with its intellectual roots in the Renaissance and Enlightenment) and the height of the Aristotelian-Scholastic one really bothers me. The culmination of over a thousand years of intellectual advances (from Aristotle's time to Aquinas's, about 10x the amount of time the United States has existed) across a variety of languages and cultures is today simplistically caricatured as a bunch of superstitious monks arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Protestants and secularists aside, why the gap? I assume the Black Death is mostly responsible. No civilization can survive having half of its population wiped out, no matter how intelligent or virtuous its leading lights were. We can say that turning to Galen and Aristotle instead of germ theory in the face of such a plague was a sign of their civilization's intellectual inferiority; in the event of a similar catastrophe, a sizable proportion of our modern and enlightened civilization would instead turn to Alex Jones. I hope that we won't ever have to face what they did—I suspect we'd fare worse.
Regarding the Middle Ages, I was particularly moved by the description of the monastics and saints who desperately preserved all the knowledge they could in the shadow of a decaying empire, as their entire world splintered into chaotic violence between barbarian warlords (highlight: Isidore, who Wikipedia fittingly tells me is the patron saint of the Internet). But the renaissance of 1100 takes the cake (highlights: the Scholastics' controversial insistence that Scripture be defended with reason as opposed to blind faith, the founding of hospitals and universities, the Gothic cathedrals, everything about Albert the Great and Aquinas, and the relationship between Peter Abelard and Heloise—who named their son "Astrolabe" in honor of the cutting-edge technology, interest in outer space, and rationalistic philosophy which I'm sure everyone today associates with the year 1100).
There's so much more covered in the book than in this review (Romans, math, Islam, and medicine, among other things), but the intellectual disconnect between our civilization (with its intellectual roots in the Renaissance and Enlightenment) and the height of the Aristotelian-Scholastic one really bothers me. The culmination of over a thousand years of intellectual advances (from Aristotle's time to Aquinas's, about 10x the amount of time the United States has existed) across a variety of languages and cultures is today simplistically caricatured as a bunch of superstitious monks arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Protestants and secularists aside, why the gap? I assume the Black Death is mostly responsible. No civilization can survive having half of its population wiped out, no matter how intelligent or virtuous its leading lights were. We can say that turning to Galen and Aristotle instead of germ theory in the face of such a plague was a sign of their civilization's intellectual inferiority; in the event of a similar catastrophe, a sizable proportion of our modern and enlightened civilization would instead turn to Alex Jones. I hope that we won't ever have to face what they did—I suspect we'd fare worse.
September 4, 2021
This book is based on the author's courses as regards the history of science in the West. Other than serving as a review, his approach is notable for two things: First, that significant contributions were made in the middle ages (500-1450); second, that we misapprehend their work if we judge it from a contemporary 'scientific' perspective without sufficient appreciation of what it was they intended to accomplish.
March 18, 2020
This is essential reading for anybody studying the natural sciences, regardless of whether they are studying as a scientist, a philosopher, or a theologian. In this book, Lindberg begins with the early presocratics and moves through the history of western science up to the early modern period, providing us with a helpful understanding of how science actually developed between 400 and 1500, and how it provided a foundation for modern science. Lindberg is modest in his claims, and helpful. A must read.
Read
October 25, 2024This is the required text from the class I'm taking, it's a pretty impressive text that presents an erudite and solid introduction to the historical developments of modern science. It emphasizes the need to understand the conceptual framework and mindset of the people of each milieu, emphasizing that beliefs that may seem strange to us (astrology, alchemy, geocentrism, celestial spheres, the four elements, etc.) appeared logically encapsulated within their worldviews of the time.
February 7, 2021
This is overall a delightful book for the interested non-expert. The writing is clear and compelling, the humor infrequent and dry but a welcome addition, and the span of topics quite interesting. I come at this from the perspective of a professional physicist, a group whose folk history of their discipline starts with Newton or Galileo, with a mention of Aristotle if one is lucky - no mention of anything worthwhile in the intervening two millennia. (Modern astronomers fare slightly better, learning of Ptolemy and Copernicus - but still have a gap of 1400 years in their folk history.) The achievements in the Islamic empire and the late Middle Ages were well worth seeing in some detail (although it appears the early Middle Ages were only slightly less intellectually dark than popularly imagined). Lindberg’s repetition of dates and key ideas, as well as both Latinized and more accurate names of Islamic scholars, might be annoying to some but was welcome to me. I can’t imagine the average reader without a background in the subject accurately remembering every thinker and thought for reference in later chapters.
The book misses a five-star rating due to three concerns. The first is that it’s generally not clear how idiosyncratic Lindberg’s presentation is. Multiple times he characterizes what “many” or “most” historians believe - generally on his way to present a contrary view. In some cases, like his discussion of alchemy in the Middle Ages, he (openly) bases his presentation on a single source. As a non-expert looking for a consensus view, I was a bit frustrated with these sections. And I am left to conjecture what prejudices would lead to someone discussing an Arabic translation of a Greek original text to give the name of the text not in English, Greek, or even Arabic - but perplexingly in Latin.
The second is perhaps minor, but still concerns me. It’s when Lindberg attempts to use the language of a modern physicist. Here he carelessly uses “heat” when he means “temperature”, and “angular velocity” when he means “linear velocity”. To a casual reader these may seem like minor mistakes or even acceptable common language, but they’re definitely confusing very distinct things from a freshman physics course. While I appreciate that Lindberg takes the approach of trying to judge the scholarship of a period in its historical context, rather than seeking threads that only after the fact can we see lead to our modern view, these mistakes make me wonder if he was in fact even capable of taking the latter approach.
Third, was I convinced that science has a longer history than I suspected? No. A modern scientist sees no writing instantly recognizable as science until Newton’s Principia, though Galileo’s approach is certainly familiar. (Historians seem to believe modern scientists see Copernicus as one of our own, but we don’t. Copernicus uses only the machinery of antiquity, and he himself discusses his continuity with earlier writers to an excessive degree.) For someone arguing for a great deal of historical continuity between the Middle Ages and the Scientific Revolution, Lindberg is certainly quite mute on the Renaissance. He skips straight from Nicole Oresme (died 1382) and Thomas Bradwardine (died 1342) to Galileo (born 1564). To be clear, most physicists alive and working today are closer in chronology to Newton than Newton was to Bradwardine. Lindberg seems as guilty of neglecting the Renaissance and the Byzantine Empire as those he chastises are of neglecting the European Middle Ages.
However, the history of pre-science was certainly richer and more complex than I had known, and it was good to get an overview of it. While my review focuses more heavily on the negatives, I really did overall find this book a great read.
The book misses a five-star rating due to three concerns. The first is that it’s generally not clear how idiosyncratic Lindberg’s presentation is. Multiple times he characterizes what “many” or “most” historians believe - generally on his way to present a contrary view. In some cases, like his discussion of alchemy in the Middle Ages, he (openly) bases his presentation on a single source. As a non-expert looking for a consensus view, I was a bit frustrated with these sections. And I am left to conjecture what prejudices would lead to someone discussing an Arabic translation of a Greek original text to give the name of the text not in English, Greek, or even Arabic - but perplexingly in Latin.
The second is perhaps minor, but still concerns me. It’s when Lindberg attempts to use the language of a modern physicist. Here he carelessly uses “heat” when he means “temperature”, and “angular velocity” when he means “linear velocity”. To a casual reader these may seem like minor mistakes or even acceptable common language, but they’re definitely confusing very distinct things from a freshman physics course. While I appreciate that Lindberg takes the approach of trying to judge the scholarship of a period in its historical context, rather than seeking threads that only after the fact can we see lead to our modern view, these mistakes make me wonder if he was in fact even capable of taking the latter approach.
Third, was I convinced that science has a longer history than I suspected? No. A modern scientist sees no writing instantly recognizable as science until Newton’s Principia, though Galileo’s approach is certainly familiar. (Historians seem to believe modern scientists see Copernicus as one of our own, but we don’t. Copernicus uses only the machinery of antiquity, and he himself discusses his continuity with earlier writers to an excessive degree.) For someone arguing for a great deal of historical continuity between the Middle Ages and the Scientific Revolution, Lindberg is certainly quite mute on the Renaissance. He skips straight from Nicole Oresme (died 1382) and Thomas Bradwardine (died 1342) to Galileo (born 1564). To be clear, most physicists alive and working today are closer in chronology to Newton than Newton was to Bradwardine. Lindberg seems as guilty of neglecting the Renaissance and the Byzantine Empire as those he chastises are of neglecting the European Middle Ages.
However, the history of pre-science was certainly richer and more complex than I had known, and it was good to get an overview of it. While my review focuses more heavily on the negatives, I really did overall find this book a great read.
August 16, 2014
In recent years, few synthetic and interpretative histories of science have been written which overview science from antiquity to the Middle Ages. David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, attempts to synthesize the philosophical, religious, and institutional aspects of this period, focusing on themes of transmission and continuity and profiting from research that was unavailable to past scholars of this genre. Lindberg's purpose was to describe the ancient and medieval scientific tradition, while avoiding Whigish interpretations at all times (excluding the last chapter). This book also provided a good synthesis of many of the books I have read covering Greek, Islamic, and medieval science. Thus, the intent of this essay will be not only to discuss the Lindberg book, but also to briefly compare and contrast it to the views of other scholars that I have read.
While Lindberg confesses that his expertise is in medieval science, I thought that his description of the Greek and Roman period was very good. A staple of most discussions of Greek natural philosophy (or nature inquiry) is a definition of what science is and is not. Lindberg's definition, which is actually a series of definitions, is sufficiently broad to include the Greeks within the realm of science. Yet, he claims that anachronistic value assessments of past science are impossible because the intent and methodology of "scientific" inquiry has changed over time.
Lindberg covered the main questions concerned with Greek thought, including the pre-Socratic questions of ultimate reality, the problem of change, and the epistemological problem of knowledge. He then discussed Plato's senseless (no pun intended) philosophy, his world of forms, and cosmological view of nature. The achievement of this period was, of course, to form a nonsupernatural conception of nature.
Lindberg provided an in-depth discussion of Aristotle, which I consider to be the best that I have read because of how he presented it. Other authors such as Marshall Clagett discussed Greek science by writing separate chapters on Greek biology, mathematics, cosmology, and physics, with Aristotle's contributions discussed in each chapter. This always left me with a discontinuous view of the man. However, Lindberg discussed Aristotle in a single chapter with relevant subsections on his metaphysics, theories of change, cosmology, motion, and biology. This provided a strong background to subsequent chapters which were devoted to Hellenistic natural philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy.
I thought that Lindberg's presentation of the period of Antiquity was clear, and most importantly, impartial. He had no desire to prove a continuous line of descent from Greek science to the 20th century as, I believe, was the case with G. E. R. Lloyd . Lloyd stated that the most important achievement of Greek science was the establishment of two key methodological principles--the application of mathematics and empirical research. This, he claims, is what the Scientific Revolution was partly based upon. I believe that Lindberg would argue Lloyd's assessment by simply stating that the merits of a philosophy should be judged by predecessors, not successors. More specifically he would argue, "ancient and medieval scholars...did not set out to solve 16th and 17th century scientific problems. Their aim was not to anticipate future worldviews...but to explore their own...and their competence must be judged accordingly." This was one of the most important and enlightening statements that I gained from Lindberg, and its applicability to all past scientific inquiry is universal.
Greek science diffused eastward to Byzantium and was adopted, translated, and commented upon by Islamic scholars. These scholars were motivated to study the Greeks because they sought to participate in an advanced intellectual culture, and they believed Greek science had a utilitarian value. By characterizing Islamic scholars as "disciples" of Greek philosophy, I thought that Lindberg described the achievements of Islamic science clearly. A disciple is not a denigrating term. For example, Islamic astronomy was based on Ptolemy, and yet they made advanced observations on their own.
There are two divergent views as to the fate of Greek science in Islam. The first is the marginality thesis which states that Greek science was never fully integrated into Islamic orthodox thought. Both Lindberg, who cited the wide diffusion of science in Islam, and A. I. Sabra, who stressed the utility and classroom teaching of science, discounted this thesis. The second view states that Greek science was cultivated and embraced. I believe that this is what Sabre intended when he proposed that there was an assimilation of science which resulted in Islamic naturalization. However, Lindberg does not agree with this view either. He believed that Greek learning never found a strong institutional home in Islam, because their schools lacked the uniformity and structure of Western universities. Thus, while Sabre viewed the teaching curriculum as an asset to the naturalization of Greek science, Lindberg interpreted it as "doing nothing to prohibit foreign sciences; but neither did it do much to support them." This is an interesting debate, and one which seems unresolved.
During a transition period in the Middle Ages, there was a revival of learning in the West through the recovery, translation, and assimilation of Greek and Islamic science. Lindberg organized the three main chapters on the late medieval period on the conceptual arrangement of the cosmos by Aristotle in On the Heavens--celestial, sub-lunar, and terrestrial. First, he discussed the celestial region and views of the medieval cosmos. This included discussions concerning the motions of the earth, harmonizing Ptolemaic theory with Aristotelian cosmology, astronomy, and astrology. Second, there was a description of the sub-lunar region physics. What I found unclear here was distinguishing between the ideas of Aristotle and advancements by medieval inquirers. Lindberg made the distinction clear with kinematics, dynamics, and optics; but discussions on matter, form, combination, and motion left me confused as to what advances medieval scholars made. Finally, he discussed the terrestrial sphere with his topics of medicine and natural history. I found it interesting that this was when the first hospitals were formed and that difficult and dangerous surgeries such as cataract removal were attempted.
In the final chapter, Lindberg broke the constraints of his thesis and entered an assessment of the merits and value of medieval science. I was surprised that he did not seek to establish a continuity between medieval science and the Scientific Revolution. In the Scientific Revolution, Lindberg believed that such a radical, methodological, and metaphysical change occurred that modern science began from that point. Yet, the medieval period did make grand contributions to the advancement of science. The institutionalization and systematic teaching in the universities was one of the major achievements in this period with its synthesis of Greek and Islamic philosophy. Other contributions included a critical appraisal of Aristotle and others, along with some continuity in linguistic, conceptual, and theoretical ideas.
I thought that this was an excellent book, and I give it a high recommendation. It is unbiased in its presentation of a vast amount of information, covering a span of two thousand years. As a synthesis and overview of this period, Lindberg has successfully accomplished his intent. He was also courteous to his predecessors such as Lloyd and Clagget in his attempt not to diminish their work, but to enhance it. Science in the Middle Ages is a sometimes nebulous subject to which Lindberg has cast some much needed light.
While Lindberg confesses that his expertise is in medieval science, I thought that his description of the Greek and Roman period was very good. A staple of most discussions of Greek natural philosophy (or nature inquiry) is a definition of what science is and is not. Lindberg's definition, which is actually a series of definitions, is sufficiently broad to include the Greeks within the realm of science. Yet, he claims that anachronistic value assessments of past science are impossible because the intent and methodology of "scientific" inquiry has changed over time.
Lindberg covered the main questions concerned with Greek thought, including the pre-Socratic questions of ultimate reality, the problem of change, and the epistemological problem of knowledge. He then discussed Plato's senseless (no pun intended) philosophy, his world of forms, and cosmological view of nature. The achievement of this period was, of course, to form a nonsupernatural conception of nature.
Lindberg provided an in-depth discussion of Aristotle, which I consider to be the best that I have read because of how he presented it. Other authors such as Marshall Clagett discussed Greek science by writing separate chapters on Greek biology, mathematics, cosmology, and physics, with Aristotle's contributions discussed in each chapter. This always left me with a discontinuous view of the man. However, Lindberg discussed Aristotle in a single chapter with relevant subsections on his metaphysics, theories of change, cosmology, motion, and biology. This provided a strong background to subsequent chapters which were devoted to Hellenistic natural philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy.
I thought that Lindberg's presentation of the period of Antiquity was clear, and most importantly, impartial. He had no desire to prove a continuous line of descent from Greek science to the 20th century as, I believe, was the case with G. E. R. Lloyd . Lloyd stated that the most important achievement of Greek science was the establishment of two key methodological principles--the application of mathematics and empirical research. This, he claims, is what the Scientific Revolution was partly based upon. I believe that Lindberg would argue Lloyd's assessment by simply stating that the merits of a philosophy should be judged by predecessors, not successors. More specifically he would argue, "ancient and medieval scholars...did not set out to solve 16th and 17th century scientific problems. Their aim was not to anticipate future worldviews...but to explore their own...and their competence must be judged accordingly." This was one of the most important and enlightening statements that I gained from Lindberg, and its applicability to all past scientific inquiry is universal.
Greek science diffused eastward to Byzantium and was adopted, translated, and commented upon by Islamic scholars. These scholars were motivated to study the Greeks because they sought to participate in an advanced intellectual culture, and they believed Greek science had a utilitarian value. By characterizing Islamic scholars as "disciples" of Greek philosophy, I thought that Lindberg described the achievements of Islamic science clearly. A disciple is not a denigrating term. For example, Islamic astronomy was based on Ptolemy, and yet they made advanced observations on their own.
There are two divergent views as to the fate of Greek science in Islam. The first is the marginality thesis which states that Greek science was never fully integrated into Islamic orthodox thought. Both Lindberg, who cited the wide diffusion of science in Islam, and A. I. Sabra, who stressed the utility and classroom teaching of science, discounted this thesis. The second view states that Greek science was cultivated and embraced. I believe that this is what Sabre intended when he proposed that there was an assimilation of science which resulted in Islamic naturalization. However, Lindberg does not agree with this view either. He believed that Greek learning never found a strong institutional home in Islam, because their schools lacked the uniformity and structure of Western universities. Thus, while Sabre viewed the teaching curriculum as an asset to the naturalization of Greek science, Lindberg interpreted it as "doing nothing to prohibit foreign sciences; but neither did it do much to support them." This is an interesting debate, and one which seems unresolved.
During a transition period in the Middle Ages, there was a revival of learning in the West through the recovery, translation, and assimilation of Greek and Islamic science. Lindberg organized the three main chapters on the late medieval period on the conceptual arrangement of the cosmos by Aristotle in On the Heavens--celestial, sub-lunar, and terrestrial. First, he discussed the celestial region and views of the medieval cosmos. This included discussions concerning the motions of the earth, harmonizing Ptolemaic theory with Aristotelian cosmology, astronomy, and astrology. Second, there was a description of the sub-lunar region physics. What I found unclear here was distinguishing between the ideas of Aristotle and advancements by medieval inquirers. Lindberg made the distinction clear with kinematics, dynamics, and optics; but discussions on matter, form, combination, and motion left me confused as to what advances medieval scholars made. Finally, he discussed the terrestrial sphere with his topics of medicine and natural history. I found it interesting that this was when the first hospitals were formed and that difficult and dangerous surgeries such as cataract removal were attempted.
In the final chapter, Lindberg broke the constraints of his thesis and entered an assessment of the merits and value of medieval science. I was surprised that he did not seek to establish a continuity between medieval science and the Scientific Revolution. In the Scientific Revolution, Lindberg believed that such a radical, methodological, and metaphysical change occurred that modern science began from that point. Yet, the medieval period did make grand contributions to the advancement of science. The institutionalization and systematic teaching in the universities was one of the major achievements in this period with its synthesis of Greek and Islamic philosophy. Other contributions included a critical appraisal of Aristotle and others, along with some continuity in linguistic, conceptual, and theoretical ideas.
I thought that this was an excellent book, and I give it a high recommendation. It is unbiased in its presentation of a vast amount of information, covering a span of two thousand years. As a synthesis and overview of this period, Lindberg has successfully accomplished his intent. He was also courteous to his predecessors such as Lloyd and Clagget in his attempt not to diminish their work, but to enhance it. Science in the Middle Ages is a sometimes nebulous subject to which Lindberg has cast some much needed light.
April 12, 2016
After reading the entertainingly written God's Philosophers, this book proved to be way more boring. It is comprehensive, well-documented, but just one of those academic books that mostly aim to cover a certain topic and not to argue a certain idea. For example, you have whole paragraphs which consist almost only of names, works and years. It is rather like a textbook, very useful for beginners who plan to specialize in the field, but not terribly captivating for general readers. You're likely to end up cursing the likes of Aristotle and Ptolemy.
Another thing that might disappoint a casual reader is Lindberg's tendency to always opt for the moderate, middle-ground position. So when he presents the continuity debate (was there a scientific revolution in the 16-17th centuries or was there continuity from Middle Ages to modernity), he says "both", which may very well be the truth. Thankfully he explains why and picks some arguments from both sides of the debate, which is the closest you'll get to an actual opinion.
The pressure of political correctness in the book is felt especially when dealing with Islamic science. After listing its achievements, he acknowledges that most modern Western readers will ask "So... what happened to that enlightened Islam? Where did it go? Why did it stop or fell behind Europe?". And then Lindberg says that this is the wrong question and it is better to focus instead on how that Golden Age came to be in the first place.
A good thing, although sometimes annoying, is the author's insistence on defending the "their point of view" position throughout the book. He warns that modern readers usually ask the wrong questions and draw the wrong conclusions about medieval science, especially given the current advancement of science and the benefit of hindsight. Instead he tries to show that medieval scholars simply lived and worked in a different intellectual and spiritual environment, with a shorter history behind and a thinner volume of knowledge and what their ideas, theories and discoveries are not limited or silly, but very often impressive given the context and later formed the basis and provided the resources for the birth of what we call modern science.
Another thing that might disappoint a casual reader is Lindberg's tendency to always opt for the moderate, middle-ground position. So when he presents the continuity debate (was there a scientific revolution in the 16-17th centuries or was there continuity from Middle Ages to modernity), he says "both", which may very well be the truth. Thankfully he explains why and picks some arguments from both sides of the debate, which is the closest you'll get to an actual opinion.
The pressure of political correctness in the book is felt especially when dealing with Islamic science. After listing its achievements, he acknowledges that most modern Western readers will ask "So... what happened to that enlightened Islam? Where did it go? Why did it stop or fell behind Europe?". And then Lindberg says that this is the wrong question and it is better to focus instead on how that Golden Age came to be in the first place.
A good thing, although sometimes annoying, is the author's insistence on defending the "their point of view" position throughout the book. He warns that modern readers usually ask the wrong questions and draw the wrong conclusions about medieval science, especially given the current advancement of science and the benefit of hindsight. Instead he tries to show that medieval scholars simply lived and worked in a different intellectual and spiritual environment, with a shorter history behind and a thinner volume of knowledge and what their ideas, theories and discoveries are not limited or silly, but very often impressive given the context and later formed the basis and provided the resources for the birth of what we call modern science.
September 12, 2015
Scholarly written, and ends with a bang. But the writings in between the different chapter doesnt add up to a bigger whole. Felt more of like a series of essays. Probably the author intended it for readers who have somewhat an intermediate-level of understanding on the topic. Content-wise: 5 stars (a tenous one). Writing-wise: 3 or 4 stars.
December 7, 2017
This book was a university text for me. I had to take a History of Science class in order to satisfy my science credit, so naturally scientific history isn't my leisure reading. However, I found this book to be very clearly written, and I believe Lindberg provides an extremely balanced and contemporary interpretation of the information.
February 16, 2020
I tracked this book because I knew it would take up a lot of my reading time and I resented it’s impact on my yearly book count. I read this (cover to cover) for a university class on the History or Science. It’s not an easy read by any means and in fact I found a good portion of it confusing. There were brief - ever so brief - glimmers of time where I experienced both clarity and interest. I can’t imagine the casual reader would ever pick this up. But should you desire to track the evolution of science from the time of first pre-history mankind through the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, early Islam and early Christianity then this is a winner winner chicken dinner for you.
June 27, 2017
The major theme of this book is that we cannot judge the accomplishments of the past through a modern lens. Every age in history had its own sets of problems and its own tools for trying to solve them. As Lindberg says, "we must forgive medieval scholars for being medieval and cease to castigate them for not being modern. If we are lucky, future generations will do us a similar favor." When we realize this, we are able to appreciate how the advancements of natural philosophy (i.e. science) from the Greeks to Medieval times shaped and influenced the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and ultimately, the science of today.
The book is worth reading for many reasons, including the breadth of time covered (some 2000 years) along with beautiful illustrations which help us gain a glimpse into the past. But most of all, it is Lindberg's insistence that we must understand the context of the times - philosophical, religious, and institutional - if we want to correctly assess the advances in those times, both on their own merits, but also on how they influenced the advancement of what we today call science. For these reasons, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of science.
The book is worth reading for many reasons, including the breadth of time covered (some 2000 years) along with beautiful illustrations which help us gain a glimpse into the past. But most of all, it is Lindberg's insistence that we must understand the context of the times - philosophical, religious, and institutional - if we want to correctly assess the advances in those times, both on their own merits, but also on how they influenced the advancement of what we today call science. For these reasons, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of science.
September 28, 2019
If you're looking to read one book in your lifetime on the history of science, this might be the book you want to get. Lindberg is thorough and scholarly throughout, yet he keeps the material accessible to readers of all levels. I frequently had to refrain from underlining because I was underlining almost every line on a page.
With that said, throughout this book, Lindberg discusses the developments in science dating back to prehistory all the way through the Middle Ages (roughly 600 BC to 1500 AD). He goes into detail about the various philosophical, theological, cultural, economic, and political factors influencing science at every age. This is one of the most significant aspects of the book because it ensures the reader understands the context in which each important development took place before discussing the developments themselves. This prevents a sort of chronological arrogance that is all too easy to have when looking back on earlier science.
While this is certainly an understandable text, it is nevertheless an academic history text. Some paragraphs consist of little more than listings of names and dates. As a result, the readability suffers a bit. But that isn't really a fault of this book since it comes with the territory of the territory of the subject matter. So if you're not into history, this probably isn't the book for you. But if you're looking to understand the historical circumstances leading to the development of modern science, I cannot recommend this book enough.
With that said, throughout this book, Lindberg discusses the developments in science dating back to prehistory all the way through the Middle Ages (roughly 600 BC to 1500 AD). He goes into detail about the various philosophical, theological, cultural, economic, and political factors influencing science at every age. This is one of the most significant aspects of the book because it ensures the reader understands the context in which each important development took place before discussing the developments themselves. This prevents a sort of chronological arrogance that is all too easy to have when looking back on earlier science.
While this is certainly an understandable text, it is nevertheless an academic history text. Some paragraphs consist of little more than listings of names and dates. As a result, the readability suffers a bit. But that isn't really a fault of this book since it comes with the territory of the territory of the subject matter. So if you're not into history, this probably isn't the book for you. But if you're looking to understand the historical circumstances leading to the development of modern science, I cannot recommend this book enough.
July 15, 2018
Wonderful account of western science, especially mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, beginning in prehistory and moving through the Greeks, Romans, Muslims, and Christian medievalists. The early scientists were also the earliest philosopher, and Lindberg gives them credit for spurring ideas with their speculations about nature. Lindberg shows that although there was a dip in scientific research in the early middle ages (used to be called the "Dark Ages"), the lack of science knowledge or interest in that period is exaggerated. He rightly emphasizes the contribution of Islamic science to European thinkers, not only in preserving the lost works of Aristotle and others that invigorated European thought early in the second millenium, but especially for the advances in mathematics. Though the 16th and 17th centuries are rightly celebrated for the Scientific Revolution that arose during that period, the path to that revolution was helpfully trodden by many brilliant thinkers. Lindberg also notes that the resistance to the development of modern science was not as widespread or deep as often characterized. Fascinating throughout, and highly recommended for those interested in the history of ideas.
May 23, 2024
I thought this book was a pretty good overview of the topic of the development of Western science, especially in the middle ages which is not generally associated with scientific achievement. The popular vie is that the rationality (and possibly atheism) of Greco-Roman society was suppressed by Christianity, creating the dark ages. This was only ended in spite of the Church and establishment thinking. The falsehood of this narrative, from the mysticism and belief in the supernatural of the ancient Greeks, to the support of science and scholarship in both the Christian West and Islamic East are completely debunked.
No specific field, discovery, or person is discussed in depth, but instead this book is a primer for further reading on the topic. The final chapter is a discussion of why the scientific revolution occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and the previous achievements of the middle ages are glossed over, and if it even deserves to be called a revolution at all.
No specific field, discovery, or person is discussed in depth, but instead this book is a primer for further reading on the topic. The final chapter is a discussion of why the scientific revolution occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and the previous achievements of the middle ages are glossed over, and if it even deserves to be called a revolution at all.
October 29, 2017
Lindberg does an excellent job of tracing the history of the sciences (broadly construed) from prehistory to the late Middle Ages. He covers, physics, optics, medicine, biology, chemistry (in the form of alchemy), astronomy, and astrology with very good contextualization of the knowledge. You learn why smart people in the past would think that astrology makes sense.
The author is very careful about explaining why medieval "scientists" thought as they did, and I find this method much more illuminating than comparing against modern ideas directly (although understanding them from the lens of modernity can be useful). I found the writing quite good and witty with plenty of authorial style shining through.
If you want to know the history of science until the Scientific Revolution beginning in the 1600s (the title says to 1450), then this is a great book to introduce you to all relevant aspects of philosophy.
The author is very careful about explaining why medieval "scientists" thought as they did, and I find this method much more illuminating than comparing against modern ideas directly (although understanding them from the lens of modernity can be useful). I found the writing quite good and witty with plenty of authorial style shining through.
If you want to know the history of science until the Scientific Revolution beginning in the 1600s (the title says to 1450), then this is a great book to introduce you to all relevant aspects of philosophy.
August 27, 2017
Excellent overview of the history of Western Science. The author is evenhanded and avoids any of the anti-religious nonsense regarding the Medieval era. The only disagreement I found was in one aside where he mentions the death of Hyapatia was due to Christians attacking her for her pagan beliefs. Other than that is is a valuable work and worth getting for anyone interested in the history of science.
October 4, 2019
If there is such a thing as Chinese Medicine, why not Western Science?
Lindberg is another academic paper pusher doing his little racist dance: not science, but Western Science. And it will involve witch doctors who have no idea of egg and sperm, but know the precise time of the day when the soul is being installed by the higher angels.
Lindberg is another academic paper pusher doing his little racist dance: not science, but Western Science. And it will involve witch doctors who have no idea of egg and sperm, but know the precise time of the day when the soul is being installed by the higher angels.
April 13, 2021
History of science or as it was called back in the day natural philosophy. Starts with the Babylonians goes through the Greeks, the Hellenistic period, the Romans, and the middle ages, and the Islamic golden age. Covers developments in mathematics, astronomy, physics, medicine, biology, botany in the ancient and medieval world. Fairly good on the fundamentals of early natural philosophy.
September 17, 2021
One of them Uni books, I'll nvr ever read again, although dusting it up now, I checked heavy underlying on a few starter chapters, which meant... It was really worthy of my time back then, or it was more interesting, than I make it out to be today..
July 6, 2022
I read this book as part of a book club and was delighted with it. Lindberg's argument really benefits from thoughtful discussion. While there are some dated references this book stands out as a one stop shop for contextualizing early wester science.
December 10, 2018
An overview of Western scientific thought.
December 29, 2019
The very best overview of the topic. And the extensive notes and comprehensive bibliography will send you down myriad rabbit holes. A brilliant book.
April 10, 2020
Information amount very low... Sir David Lindberg has failed to make the book concise...still, a good book
August 17, 2022
Covers a great span of time from an Essentially Christian centric viewpoint. Good to get metrics for jumping off points for a deeper dive.
May 30, 2023
西方科学的起源
本以为这会是一部比较艰涩难读的理论书籍，没想到里面包含了众多古代西方的奇闻轶事，走马观花般的读完。为50多页的参考书目点个赞。
本以为这会是一部比较艰涩难读的理论书籍，没想到里面包含了众多古代西方的奇闻轶事，走马观花般的读完。为50多页的参考书目点个赞。
August 31, 2023
Lots of detail on the middle ages science progress.
February 12, 2024
Easy read, slightly boring
October 15, 2024
assigned reading that didn’t put me to sleep and actually kept me engaged, a sizable achievement. connected concepts and histories over broad swaths of time and space beautifully.
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