- I am a historian of ancient Greek science and philosophy.edit
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In the mid-first century BC Geminus of Rhodes, a scientist and philosopher close to Posidonius, composed a comprehensive Theory of Mathematical Sciences, in the surviving fragments of which the numerous characters are referred to plainly... more
In the mid-first century BC Geminus of Rhodes, a scientist and philosopher close to Posidonius, composed a comprehensive Theory of Mathematical Sciences, in the surviving fragments of which the numerous characters are referred to plainly by name, with some of them being namesakes of other, more well-known mathematicians and philosophers. This paper tries to set apart the namesakes of Geminus, of which there are four in his fragments: Theodorus, Hippias, Oenopides, and Menaechmus.
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The introduction of modern notions into the history of the ancient world is not an individual feature of Mikhail Rostovtzeff as an historian but was characteristic of many scholars from the generation of his teachers, and then of his... more
The introduction of modern notions into the history of the ancient world is not an individual feature of Mikhail Rostovtzeff as an historian but was characteristic of many scholars from the generation of his teachers, and then of his students, and therefore should be viewed against this broader backdrop. With the emergence of economic history, political economists K. Rodbertus and K. Bücher interpreted the
economic development of antiquity in terms of the then prevailing notions of progress, and corresponding to this historical period was a very primitive economic order and closed-household economy. Such an archaization of the ancient economy was opposed by Eduard Meyer, an outstanding historian of the ancient world, who not only saw many capitalist elements in antiquity (they were previously discerned by T. Mommsen and later by his students M. Weber, J. Beloch, U. Wilken, R. Pöhlmann etc.) but who in principle rejected the theory of progress in favor of the theory of cycles, or two parallel periods in world history. M. Rostovtzeff shared this theory in his early article “Capitalism and the National Economy in the Ancient World” (1900) which contains many ideas that he later developed in his major works on the social and economic history of Hellenism and the Roman Empire.
Evaluating the discussions about Hellenistic and Roman capitalism, we should consider the struggle between primitivists and modernizers to be an integral part of and a powerful stimulus to the scholarly understanding of antiquity, which uses explanatory models. In the second half of the nineteenth century the concept of capitalism had not yet been fully developed and therefore its scope and content in the works of Rostovtzeff, his associates and critics did in face vary significantly. The doctrine of socio-economic formations (slaveholding, feudal, capitalist etc.), habitual to Soviet scholars, was developed only in the 1930s, thus forcing many Soviet historians to abandon their previous views of the historical process.
The leading historian of ancient economy after Rostovtzeff, M. Finley, though used Weberian concepts, tended rather to side with the primitivists. In general he insisted on the self-sufficiency of cells of the ancient economy and denied any tangible technological progress or economic growth throughout ancient history. By the end of the twentieth century it became clear that the model proposed by Finley needed at very least the same modification as Rostovtzeff’s theory. Unlike Rostovtzeff’s theories, his histories remain unsuperceded.
economic development of antiquity in terms of the then prevailing notions of progress, and corresponding to this historical period was a very primitive economic order and closed-household economy. Such an archaization of the ancient economy was opposed by Eduard Meyer, an outstanding historian of the ancient world, who not only saw many capitalist elements in antiquity (they were previously discerned by T. Mommsen and later by his students M. Weber, J. Beloch, U. Wilken, R. Pöhlmann etc.) but who in principle rejected the theory of progress in favor of the theory of cycles, or two parallel periods in world history. M. Rostovtzeff shared this theory in his early article “Capitalism and the National Economy in the Ancient World” (1900) which contains many ideas that he later developed in his major works on the social and economic history of Hellenism and the Roman Empire.
Evaluating the discussions about Hellenistic and Roman capitalism, we should consider the struggle between primitivists and modernizers to be an integral part of and a powerful stimulus to the scholarly understanding of antiquity, which uses explanatory models. In the second half of the nineteenth century the concept of capitalism had not yet been fully developed and therefore its scope and content in the works of Rostovtzeff, his associates and critics did in face vary significantly. The doctrine of socio-economic formations (slaveholding, feudal, capitalist etc.), habitual to Soviet scholars, was developed only in the 1930s, thus forcing many Soviet historians to abandon their previous views of the historical process.
The leading historian of ancient economy after Rostovtzeff, M. Finley, though used Weberian concepts, tended rather to side with the primitivists. In general he insisted on the self-sufficiency of cells of the ancient economy and denied any tangible technological progress or economic growth throughout ancient history. By the end of the twentieth century it became clear that the model proposed by Finley needed at very least the same modification as Rostovtzeff’s theory. Unlike Rostovtzeff’s theories, his histories remain unsuperceded.
Research Interests: History of Economic Thought, History of Capitalism, Sir Moses Finley, Historical Theory, History of Classical Scholarship, and 7 moreMax Weber, Roman social and economic history, Ancient economic history, Hellenistic Social and Economic History, Moses I. Finley, Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtzeff, and Eduard Meyer
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Research Interests: Philo of Alexandria, Pythagoreanism, Pseudoscience, Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha, Plato and Platonism, and 14 moreAlexander of Aphrodisias, Neoplatonism, "Middle" Platonism, Neopythagoreanism, Number Symbolism, Neoplatonism and Pythagoreanism, Doxography, Speusippus, Posidonius, Doxographia Graeca, Medieval Numerology and Number Symbolism, Arithmology, Pseudopythagorica, and Aristotle Fragments
About forty years ago Walter Burkert, the great classical scholar, offered new definitions of Orphism as a craft and of Pythagoreanism as a sect. Soon these two models pushed the traditional concepts applied to Orphics and Pythagoreans,... more
About forty years ago Walter Burkert, the great classical scholar, offered new definitions
of Orphism as a craft and of Pythagoreanism as a sect. Soon these two models pushed the traditional concepts applied to Orphics and Pythagoreans, such as ‘religious movement’ and ‘philosophical school’, into the background. This paper considers the origin of these models in the historiography of Greek religion and sociology of religion and explores further how valid they are today, after the unprecedented growth of new evidence on Orphism and a slow shift in views on Pythagoreanism. A theoretical and historical analysis of the two models shows that they are no longer suitable for describing the realia of the two movements, one of which was religious and the other socio-political and intellectual.
of Orphism as a craft and of Pythagoreanism as a sect. Soon these two models pushed the traditional concepts applied to Orphics and Pythagoreans, such as ‘religious movement’ and ‘philosophical school’, into the background. This paper considers the origin of these models in the historiography of Greek religion and sociology of religion and explores further how valid they are today, after the unprecedented growth of new evidence on Orphism and a slow shift in views on Pythagoreanism. A theoretical and historical analysis of the two models shows that they are no longer suitable for describing the realia of the two movements, one of which was religious and the other socio-political and intellectual.
Research Interests: Ancient Greek Religion, Pythagoreanism, Greek religion (Classics), Sociology of religion (Religion), Derveni Papyrus, and 11 moreOrphism, Orpheus, Orphism, Orphic literature, Orphics, Orphic lamellae, Orphic Studies, Orphic poetry and ritual, Orphisme, Orphic Literature, Orphic Tablets, Orphic Cults, and Walter Burkert
Research Interests: Philo of Alexandria, Pythagoreanism, Hippocratic Corpus, Plato and Platonism, Neoplatonism, and 9 moreAncient Greek Philosophy, Neopythagoreanism, Number Symbolism, Doxography, Presocratics, Speusippus, Symbolic meaning of numbers in the Bible, Medieval Numerology and Number Symbolism, and Arithmology
This paper gives an overview of the papyrological evidence for Pythagoras and (much less) the Pythagoreans, which is collected in "Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici" and in Christian Vassallo’s “Catalogue of the Evidence for Presocratics in... more
This paper gives an overview of the papyrological evidence for Pythagoras and (much less) the Pythagoreans, which is collected in "Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici" and in Christian Vassallo’s “Catalogue of the Evidence for Presocratics in the Herculaneum Papyri”, no. 161-173, p. 52-53. Some of this scattered evidence can be coherently brought together and provide clues for the history of Pythagoreanism, whereas other is worthy of fresh consideration. Practically all the testimonia of the Herculaneum papyri come from the writings of Philodemus; they concern Pythagoras, not the Pythagoreans, and are of a biographical, not doxographical character. Philodemus’ evidence reflects the early Hellenistic stage of the Pythagorean tradition, before rise of Neopythagoreanism and the pseudo-Pythagorean literature related to it. Later evidence reveals new view on Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans as the philosophical precursors of Plato.
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This essay examines the quantitative aspects of Greco-Roman science, represented by a group of established disciplines that since the fourth century B.C.E. had been called mathēmata or mathēmatikai epistēmai. Among the mathēmata,... more
This essay examines the quantitative aspects of Greco-Roman science, represented by a group of established disciplines that since the fourth century B.C.E. had been called mathēmata or mathēmatikai epistēmai. Among the mathēmata, which in antiquity normally comprised mathematics, mathematical astronomy, harmonics, mechanics, and optics, the essay also includes geography. Using a data set based on The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Natural Scientists, it considers a community of mathēmatikoi (as they called themselves), or ancient scientists (as they are defined for the purposes of this essay), from a sociological point of view, focusing on the size of the scientific population known to us and its disciplinary, temporal, and geographical distribution. A diachronic comparison of neighboring and partly overlapping communities—ancient scientists and philosophers—allows the pattern of their interrelationship to be traced. An examination of centers of science throughout ancient history reveals that there were five major sites—Athens, Alexandria, Rhodes, Rome, and Byzantium/Constantinople—that appeared, in succession, as leaders. These conclusions serve to reopen the issue of the place of mathēmata and mathēmatikoi in ancient society.
Research Interests: History of Science and Technology, History of Science, Greco-Roman Science, Ancient Science, Sociology of Science, and 11 moreAncient Greek Philosophy, Greek Mathematics, History and Sociology of Science, Ancient Mathematics and Music, Greek and Roman Science and Technology, Philosophy and history of science, Mathematics in Ancient Greek, Ancient Greek Science and Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Science, History of Ancient Greek Mathematics, and ancient mathematics and natural science
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This paper discusses the notion of physis in the fragments of the Pythagoreans Philolaus of Croton and Archytas of Tarentum. Building on the twentieth-century discussion of the two basic meanings of physis, ‘growth’ and ‘being’ (section... more
This paper discusses the notion of physis in the fragments of the Pythagoreans Philolaus of Croton and Archytas of Tarentum. Building on the twentieth-century discussion of the two basic meanings of physis, ‘growth’ and ‘being’ (section 2), it argues that Philolaus was most probably the author of the first treatise entitled Περὶ φύσεως, as the first-century BC writer Diogenes of Magnesia testifies. The remaining evidence on Presocratic books entitled Περὶ φύσεως is late and unreliable (section 3). ἁ φύσις in Philolaus B 1 and 6 denotes ‘all that exists’; the Pythagorean speaks of physis in a generalized collective sense as of everything that came into being and exists in the world-order (section 4). As distinct from Philolaus, Archytas did not develop a doctrine of principles, and his epistemology was not constrained by metaphysical presuppositions. Archytas B 1 considers physis from both cosmological and epistemological points of views, as ‘the nature of the whole’ that is available to human cognition. Without setting any conditions or limitations to this process, as Philolaus did, he reinforces the latter’s declaration that “all the things that are known have number” (B 4) by making four Pythagorean mathēmata the principal cognitive tools for scientific enquiry into nature (section 5).
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This paper discusses the problem of continuity between ancient Pythagoreanism and the pseudo-Pythagorean writings, which began to appear after the death of the Pythagorean school ca 350 BC. Relying on a combination of temporal, formal... more
This paper discusses the problem of continuity between ancient Pythagoreanism and the pseudo-Pythagorean writings, which began to appear after the death of the Pythagorean school ca 350 BC. Relying on a combination of temporal, formal and substantial criteria, I divide Pseudopythagorica into three categories: 1) early Hellenistic writings (late fourth – late second centuries BC) ascribed to Pythagoras and his family members; 2) philosophical treatises written mostly, yet not exclusively, in pseudo-Doric since the turn of the first century BC under the names of real or fictional Pythagoreans; 3) writings attributed to Pythagoras and his relatives, which continued to appear in the late Hellenistic and Imperial periods. I will argue that all three categories of pseudepigrapha contain astonishingly little that is authentically Pythagorean.
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Research Interests: Presocratic Philosophy, Pythagoreanism, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Pythagoreans, Greek Mathematics, and 9 morePythagoras, Alcmaeon of Croton, Archytas, Presocratics, Archytas of Tarentum, Philolaus of Croton, Pythagoras Pythagoreans Science Plato Archytas, Ancient Greek Science and Philosophy, and History of Ancient Greek Mathematics
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In this article, two questions are posed: Just how reliable is the evidence concerning Pythagoras's mathematical studies, and can we reconstruct his contribution to mathematics? All known fragments of evidence by fourth-century B.C.... more
In this article, two questions are posed: Just how reliable is the evidence concerning Pythagoras's mathematical studies, and can we reconstruct his contribution to mathematics? All known fragments of evidence by fourth-century B.C. authors on Pythagoras's mathematical investigations are examined, and it is shown that all the discoveries they mentioned belong to the sixth century B.C. The opinion that the Pythagoreans ascribed their own discoveries to Pythagoras is refuted, and it is shown that we are able to establish logically his contribution to mathematics.Der Aufsatz behandelt die Frage, ob es sichere Zeugnisse über Pythagoras' mathematische Beschäftigungen gibt und ob wir auf dieser Grundlage seinen Beitrag zur Mathematik rekonstruieren können. Im Aufsatz werden Zeugnisse der Autoren aus dem 4 Jh. v.u.Z. über Pythagoras' mathematische Forschungen gesammelt, und es wird gezeigt, daß alle seine Entdeckungen wirklich dem Ende des 6 Jh. v.u.Z. angehören. Im Aufsatz wird die ältere Meinung abgelehnt, daß die Pythagoreer ihre Entdeckungen dem Pythagoras zugeschrieben haben, und es wird gezeigt, daß wir in der Lage sind, seinen Beitrag zur Mathematik abzugrenzen.
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Teaching of mathēmata in the framework of enkyklios paideia, the post-school education of a “free man”, was a new social practice that originated in the fourth century BC and greatly contributed to the growing public acceptance of... more
Teaching of mathēmata in the framework of enkyklios paideia, the post-school
education of a “free man”, was a new social practice that originated in the fourth century BC and greatly contributed to the growing public acceptance of science. Due to this educational practice that became common during the Hellenistic period many young men from wealthy families who took the course of enkyklios paideia, received instruction in the four mathēmata: geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and harmonics. Although the widespread use of this model of education coincided with the sudden quantitative and qualitative decline of Greek science in the first century BC, a considerable number of educated people from the higher strata of society were becoming familiar, albeit in varying degrees, with scientific knowledge and methods. Thus, mathēmata were ingrained in society to an extent that enabled them to survive, albeit with serious losses, the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, when the volume and quality of scientific
knowledge drastically declined, and their preservation became part of the social role of
the clergyman.
education of a “free man”, was a new social practice that originated in the fourth century BC and greatly contributed to the growing public acceptance of science. Due to this educational practice that became common during the Hellenistic period many young men from wealthy families who took the course of enkyklios paideia, received instruction in the four mathēmata: geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and harmonics. Although the widespread use of this model of education coincided with the sudden quantitative and qualitative decline of Greek science in the first century BC, a considerable number of educated people from the higher strata of society were becoming familiar, albeit in varying degrees, with scientific knowledge and methods. Thus, mathēmata were ingrained in society to an extent that enabled them to survive, albeit with serious losses, the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, when the volume and quality of scientific
knowledge drastically declined, and their preservation became part of the social role of
the clergyman.
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Статья освещает научную деятельность М. А. Гуковского в 1930-е гг., когда создавался его главный историко-научный труд — «Механика Леонардо да Винчи», который он защитил в 1939 г. как докторскую диссертацию, но сумел издать только в 1947... more
Статья освещает научную деятельность М. А. Гуковского в 1930-е гг.,
когда создавался его главный историко-научный труд — «Механика Леонардо да Винчи», который он защитил в 1939 г. как докторскую диссертацию, но сумел издать только в 1947 г. Получив образование у ученых старой школы, Л. П. Карсавина, И. М. Гревса, А. И. Хоментовской, Гуковский далеко не сразу нашел себя как историк, его научная и организационная деятельность в Комиссии по истории знаний и в Институте истории науки и техники началась уже после «великого перелома», резко усилившего идеологическое давление на гуманитарные науки. В статьях и рецензиях этого времени Гуковский предстает как ученый нового поколения, способный не только сочетать академическую ученость с марксистским пониманием
истории вообще и истории науки и техники в частности, но и формировать новую методологию их исследования, согласующуюся с задачами времени.
когда создавался его главный историко-научный труд — «Механика Леонардо да Винчи», который он защитил в 1939 г. как докторскую диссертацию, но сумел издать только в 1947 г. Получив образование у ученых старой школы, Л. П. Карсавина, И. М. Гревса, А. И. Хоментовской, Гуковский далеко не сразу нашел себя как историк, его научная и организационная деятельность в Комиссии по истории знаний и в Институте истории науки и техники началась уже после «великого перелома», резко усилившего идеологическое давление на гуманитарные науки. В статьях и рецензиях этого времени Гуковский предстает как ученый нового поколения, способный не только сочетать академическую ученость с марксистским пониманием
истории вообще и истории науки и техники в частности, но и формировать новую методологию их исследования, согласующуюся с задачами времени.
Research Interests: Renaissance Studies, History Of Technology (Technology), Soviet Union (History), Nikolai Bukharin, Leonardo da Vinci, and 6 moreHistoriography of science, Soviet Marxism, History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Soviet Culture and Ideology, History and historiography of sciences, and Russian and Soviet Historiography of Science
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Словарная статья о российском филологе-классике А.Г. Бештреме (1872-1919).
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В статье раскрывается содержание понятия «наука как социальный институт» применительно к античной эпохе. В историко-научной литературе институционализацию науки обычно понимают как возникновение университетов, академий, научных обществ и... more
В статье раскрывается содержание понятия «наука как социальный институт» применительно к античной эпохе. В историко-научной литературе институционализацию науки обычно понимают как возникновение университетов, академий, научных обществ и других научных организаций, тогда как социология рассматривает этот процесс более широко — как формирование системы социальных ценностей и норм, регулирующих деятельность ученых. Греческая наука существовала в целом без поддержки государства, научные организации были в ту эпоху исключением. Тем не менее, греческое общество поощряло мотивации и формы поведения, наиболее выгодные для научной деятельности, тем самым делая их устойчивыми, а основные ценности и нормы, разделяемые ранними греческими учеными, совпадали, полностью или частично, с полисными ценностями и нормами. Это позволяет считать науку античности социальным институтом.
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В статье рассматривается разделение когнитивного пространства в античную эпоху на примере двух наиболее влиятельных классификаций наук, Аристотеля и Гемина, которые лежат в основе всех последующих классификаций научных дисциплин до XVIII... more
В статье рассматривается разделение когнитивного пространства в античную эпоху на примере двух наиболее влиятельных классификаций наук, Аристотеля и Гемина, которые лежат в основе всех последующих классификаций научных дисциплин до XVIII в. Аристотель, рассматривая точные науки, mathēmata, в их сравнении с «первой» и особенно со «второй», физической философией, исходит из независимости всех трех видов epistēmai и стремится провести максимально жесткие границы как между ними, так и внутри поля mathēmata. Классификация Гемина (I в. до н.э.) отражает далеко зашедшую дифференциацию наук в конце эпохи эллинизма, когда почти каждая из них обзавелась несколькими вспомогательными дисциплинами, теоретическими или прикладными, а «математика» стала синонимом «науки».
Two ancient classiciafication of sciences: Aristotle and Geminus
The paper examines the division of cognitive space in Antiquity as exemplified by the two most influential classifications of sciences, by Aristotle and Geminus, which underlie all sub-sequent classifications of scientific disciplines until the 18th century. Aristotle, considering the mathēmata in their comparison with the “first” and especially with the “second”, physical philosophy, proceeds from the independence of all three kinds of epistēmai and strives to draw the most rigid boundaries possible both between them and within the field of mathēmata. Geminus’ classification reflects the far-reaching differentiation of sciences at the end of Hellenism, when almost all of them acquired several auxiliary disciplines, theoretical or applied, and when “mathematics” became synonymous with “science.”
Two ancient classiciafication of sciences: Aristotle and Geminus
The paper examines the division of cognitive space in Antiquity as exemplified by the two most influential classifications of sciences, by Aristotle and Geminus, which underlie all sub-sequent classifications of scientific disciplines until the 18th century. Aristotle, considering the mathēmata in their comparison with the “first” and especially with the “second”, physical philosophy, proceeds from the independence of all three kinds of epistēmai and strives to draw the most rigid boundaries possible both between them and within the field of mathēmata. Geminus’ classification reflects the far-reaching differentiation of sciences at the end of Hellenism, when almost all of them acquired several auxiliary disciplines, theoretical or applied, and when “mathematics” became synonymous with “science.”
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Вступительная статья к переводу 1-го тома "Истории греческой философии".
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В статье рассматриваются истоки популярного в поздней античности жанра арифмологии, первым образцом которого стал анонимный неопифагорейский трактат I в. до н.э. Арифмологию как особый жанр философских сочинений, посвященных свойствам... more
В статье рассматриваются истоки популярного в поздней античности жанра арифмологии, первым образцом которого стал анонимный неопифагорейский трактат I в. до н.э. Арифмологию как особый жанр философских сочинений, посвященных свойствам первых десяти чисел, следует отличать от числового символизма, который является универсальным культурным феноменом, связанным с отдельными значимыми числами (три, семь и т.д.). Как показывает наш анализ, философская основа арифмологии была заложена трактатом преемника Платона Спевсиппа "О пифагорейских числах", который опирался на платоновское учение о десяти идеальных числах, в то время как у древних пифагорейцев арифмологические представления не засвидетельствованы, в отличие от числового символизма. В I в. до н.э., эпоху возрождения платонизма и аристотелеизма, идеи Спевсиппа получили второе рождение, что и положило начало арифмологии как литературному жанру.
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Словарная статья об А.И. Зайцеве как литературоведе
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Salomo Luria as a historian of science
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Статья представляет собой размышление о личности и разностороннем научном и педагогическом наследии филолога-классика, профессора Ленинградского университета Александра Иосифовича Зайцева, принадлежащее его ученику, коллеге и редактору... more
Статья представляет собой размышление о личности и разностороннем научном и педагогическом наследии филолога-классика, профессора Ленинградского университета Александра Иосифовича Зайцева, принадлежащее его ученику, коллеге и редактору серии его трудов.
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Review of a curious Soviet book on medieval alchemy, published in the samizdat journal "37". Vol. 20 (1980) 190-199.
NOTE: The earlier uploaded file contained several mistakes.
NOTE: The earlier uploaded file contained several mistakes.
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Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Судьбы и перспективы исследования античной философии в России (Неопубликованное интервью журналу Логос. 2015 г.)