The Beginnings of Science #331 (P)

Dear friends of Daily Philosophy,

Today (late, as always this summer), I have another premium article for you, a continuation of our series on Ancient Greek Thought. In the first instalment, we talked about the commonly perceived ideal of the airy and logical world of the ancient Greeks. In the second part, we talked about the less visible undercurrents behind the rational facade. And today, we want to look at the beginnings of scientific thought, which are surprisingly… unscientific.

What is science?

Often “science” is seen as beginning after the Middle Ages, with the era of the Enlightenment, the secularisation of science, the first laws of induction, and figures like Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. But there is an argument to be made that some kind of science existed much earlier already. When the Egyptians were building their pyramids and calculating the floods of the Nile, when the Babylonians predicted the eclipses of the Sun and Moon, one could argue that they were doing some kind of science. Perhaps it did not follow the full methodological arsenal of a modern physics lab, but it did involve observation, deduction and prediction — three important components of the scientific enterprise.

But one could also argue that the applied techniques of the Babylonians and the Egyptians were just that: practical technology that was not based on any theoretical insight — and that does not, therefore, qualify as science. A child can build an arch with wooden building blocks, but if it does not understand why the arch works, can we say that it is doing science? Probably not.

So it is often argued that the scientific mindset is what the Milesian philosophers brought to the table in the 6th century BC. Thales, who, as we will see, had travelled widely and had probably both seen the pyramids and conversed with Babylonian astronomers, is often called the first scientist.

But things are still more complicated.

The cult behind the science

Science, religion, poetry and superstition mix in those pre-classic times in ways that confuse our easy categorisations today.