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Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle by G.E.R. Lloyd -Review

 G.E.R. Lloyd's work, although comparatively short to other works of the same nature, brings the reader through the fascinating, varied, and often misunderstood realm of Greek science, all the while breaking down common misconceptions and laying out key ideologies and concepts.

 Despite the book's clear-cut title, Lloyd decided to dedicate the majority of the first chapter of his book to a discussion about sciences that predated even the Greeks, primarily focusing upon the Egyptians and later moving onto the Babylonians. Although briefly, the book touches on the Egyptian's move away from folk medicine and towards a more detailed and organized system, as detailed in an ancient record now known as the Edwin Smith papyrus, and the creation of the now extremely familiar 365 day calender that was far more efficient and accurate then the lunar based ones used by the future Greeks and Babylonians. In an attempt not to overshadow the Babylonians too much, the chapter details Babylonia's pioneering of a number system which, unlike the overly complicated base 60 system used by the Egyptian's, had the number 10 as its base, creating a system that we are very familiar with today. To pull back towards that focus of the book, Lloyd makes the bold statement that Thales of Miletus holds the title of first “Philosopher-Scientist”. Lloyd backs up this assertion by pointing out the Thales turned away from the age old practice of attributing anything different and unknown to the work of the gods. While his ancestors might have claimed that an earthquake was the result of the god Poseidon, Thales created a theory that the surface of the world floated upon a massive sea and the vibrations felt on the surface were the result of waves from underneath. This brief talk about Thales creates a segway into the next chapter, the theories of the people of Miletus, more commonly known as the Milesians.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Greek science was moving away from mythical explanations of natural events and towards a more theoretical and observational system. Lloyd quotes another author, Farrington and generally sums up the focus of the second chapter by saying the Milesians “Leave the gods out”. The Milesians are some of the first to propose theories that explain the fundamental make-up of the the world its creation. These early philosophers and theorists decided that the ancient idea that some god just created the world was not satisfactory enough of an explanation for the civilized Greeks. Instead, they crafted numerous theories, most involving the general idea that in the beginning there was some master element or elements that through one mean or another combined in various ways to create the plants, trees, and people that we see today. These philosophers and their theories constantly competed for followers and notoriety and this race to popularity created numerous splits and sects. While Thales and his followers stood behind the idea that the world floated on an unseen sea, another prominent man Anaximander brought forward the idea that the world instead “hangs freely”, “remaining where it is because of its equal distance from everything.” Although both theories were accepted by numerous people of the day, neither had any kind of concrete evidence to prove it, a fatal flaw that comes back to haunt many Greek sciences for hundreds of years. All of the Milesian theories were based mostly on logic and contained only a cursory amount of real world observation or experimentation. As a whole, these kind of theoretical and speculative thinkers during the fifth and sixth centuries were known as the presocratic thinkers.

Lloyd chooses this next topic as a sharp contrast against other presocratic thinkers mentioned beforehand. The pythagoreans were a unique group of thinkers initially held together by religious beliefs, such as the transmigration of souls, who later moved on to find symbolism and knowledge of the world in the form of numbers. While the Milesians saw the world as being made up of “elements” or “forces”, the pythagoreans believed that the world has made of numbers, seeing them not as concepts of the mind but as physical objects, fundamental building blocks for the objects, people, and even ideas around them. Looking back from today's perspective, many of the pythagoreans' beliefs about numbers were rather unfounded and arbitrary, such as the idea that the number 4 made up justice and that marriage was made up of the number 5. This bizarre number theory has largely been disregarded, both today and during its time, as “mambo-jumbo” and “crude number-mysticism”. Most Pythagorean arguments outside of number systems simply created random additions to previous ideas that were meant to make the argument fit in with the rest of their standard number theory. One of the more prominent ones, and most absurd, was that in order for the Earth to move and exist as it did, there would have to exist a “counter-earth” that would balance the mass of the universe. Most actual philosophers disregarded this entirely as it had even less evidence and credibility then the usual theory. On a more positive note, the Pythagorean created a number of mathematical advances pertaining to such things as the irrationality of the root of 2, the volumes of solids, and the ever popular Pythagorean Theorem. On an ironic note, the actual man that the group was named after has almost no information about him surviving from any age.

Unlike other philosophers and ancient disciplines, the Hippocratic writers have a vast cache of remaining documents and treatises compared to the sparse and damaged remnants left from the others. The Hippocratics also differ from the previous individuals found in this book in the fact that they did not once touch the realms of theoretical creation and existence, but instead focused entirely on the world of medical science. The documents we have today show us that these writers kept methodical records of numerous ailments and their various treatments. Instead of posing theoretical questions about the nature of existence of the world of numbers, the Hippocratics got down and dirty and focused on developing methods that could directly make an impact on the world and not only improve the general quality of living but save laves in the process. The majority of the Hippocratic works reject any form of mystical cause or remedy claiming that the only reason someone would claim that a disease is of divine nature is so that if the patient dies, the failure is not on the “doctor's” hands but instead on the hands of some angry or evil god or spirit. This entire group displays a positive movement a more professional and methodical class of scientists that used real world data rather then baseless postulations.

As opposed to previous chapters, Lloyd devotes an entire segment of the book to one man, Plato of Athens. Plato is possibly one of the most well known Greek philosophers known to modern man. He was a man of numerous talents, interests, and ideas. One of Plato's main focuses was on Metaphysics and within that, the idea of “Forms”. Plato's “forms” were the key point of “Platonic Realism” which stated that there were two worlds. The first world is the one that mankind lives in and is only a mere shadow of the second world. The second world is what would be called the “True World” and contained the “forms” which were perfect models for the misshapen objects found in the “Shadow World”, which were referred to as “particulars”. Plato considered studying the “World of Forms” a true “Science”, while studying the “Shadow World” was only a simple pastime. Another one of Plato's more interesting postulates was that a single individual could not attain both a long life and great intellect. He stated that strengthening the body leads to “insensitivity” and strengthening the mind leads to atrophy of the body. Just as past philosophers had, Plato also indulged in the development of theories on the basis for what the world was made of. His basic system was broken down to stating that everything was made up of four “simple” bodies, fire, air, water, and earth. These bodies each had a unique number of sides, 4, 8, 20, and 6 respectively, that differentiated them. Objects in the world were then made up of stacks and combinations of these shapes that eventually formed a “particular” of whichever form it was meant to emulate. Even after all these years, many of Plato's works, such as “The Republic”, are still read by millions every year, myself included.

Lloyd's work ends with with a discussion on one of the book's name-sakes, Aristotle of Stageira. Just like Plato, Aristotle is another one of the most well-known philosophers to come out of Greece. Aristotle dabbled in many subjects, but had several major interests that reflected in his key works. Staying with the standard checklist of required theories, Aristotle had his own theory about what the world was made of. He had the normal fire, earth, air, and water and he attributed two specific attributes to each, fire was hot and dry, while water was cool and wet. Unlike others, he also added a fifth element to account for the things not of this world. Aether was a divine element that made up the stars and other heavenly bodies that did not fit neatly into the standard 4 element system. Aristotle also categorized hundreds of animals, developed medical treatments, wrote numerous books, and taught the mighty Alexander the Great. Despite all these accomplishments, Aristotle made many grievous and obvious mistakes in his works that were spread across generations by his fame and influence. On several occasions Aristotle incorrectly counted the number of teeth in the mouth or the number of ribs in a man. He also failed to test several of his theories on physics that would have been easily proved false by even the most cursory glance. The most prominent was his theory that objects of different masses fell at different speeds. We know now that speed does not alter the falling speed of an object. Despite the fact that less then one third of his known works survive to this day, Aristotle is still one of the most well known and respected men of his age.

Upon finishing this book, I felt that I had had a refreshing look into the great minds that came before us. I've always been a fan of the Greek's and I felt that the old-gentleman style that Lloyd wrote in enhanced the experience. Coupled with a number of helpful diagrams and charts, I never felt that I was being overwhelmed over that something was missing. In the end, I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the history of the Greek intellectual realm.