Ancient Philosophy

The Development of Science in Antiquity

From the very inception of philosophy, its boundaries with science were not clearly delineated. The first philosophers were also the earliest scientists, naturalists who laid the foundations of European science.

Astronomy and Mathematics

Scientific (non-mythological) conceptions of the universe were formed by ancient Greek natural philosophers in the 7th to 5th centuries BCE. The knowledge that has come down to us is fragmentary and contains contradictory data. On one hand, the geocentric idea prevailed, positing the Earth as immobile, while on the other, there existed the notion of its rotation and the evolution of the universe as a whole. Aristotle, in his treatise "On the Heavens," crafted the first physical-cosmological model of the world, envisioning the universe as a finite sphere beyond which lay neither corporeal substance nor space and time; rather, a spiritual realm of divinity was postulated. At the center of the universe resided the immobile Earth, surrounded by an ethereal substance engaged in eternal motion. The stars, composed of this ether, moved across the sky along with it, yet remained fixed within their respective spheres.

Hipparchus (180-125 BCE) was the first to employ mathematical descriptions of astronomical phenomena (particularly concepts of eccentricities, epicycles, and deferents), which reached their zenith in the works of Claudius Ptolemy (87-168 CE). He defined astronomy as the mathematical study of the heavens, basing his teachings on both accurate and erroneous postulates. The former included the notion of the Earth's sphericity and its extraordinary distance from the spheres of the stars, while the latter encompassed the Earth’s immobility and its central position in the cosmos.

Alexandria played a significant role in the advancement of astronomy, mathematics, and other sciences; founded by Alexander the Great in 322 BCE, it was home to the famous Museion (named after the Muses, patrons of the arts and intellect) and its Library, which housed up to 700,000 volumes gathered from across the ancient world. It was here that Euclid (330-277 BCE) compiled a comprehensive corpus of all ancient achievements in mathematics, grounding his work in an axiomatic method based on Aristotelian logic, which included definitions, postulates, and axioms.

Mechanics

Archimedes (287-212 BCE) was a prominent mathematician and mechanic of antiquity. He established the foundations of hydrostatics with his famous principle, stating that bodies denser than a fluid sink when submerged, while they appear lighter when immersed, with the volume of the displaced fluid being equal to that of the object. Archimedes is also renowned for his law of the lever: two weights are in equilibrium if their distances from the fulcrum are proportional to their weights. His famous declaration, "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth," exemplifies his contributions. He authored numerous scientific works, including "On the Sphere and Cylinder," "On Measurement of a Circle," "On Spirals," and "On Cones and Spheroids."

Medicine

Hippocrates (460-370 BCE), often referred to as the father of medicine, authored over fifty works. A proponent of rational explanations for disease causes, he rejected magical interpretations. Health or illness, he posited, is a function of the conditions in which a person lives, thus a physician must thoroughly understand the relationships between individuals and their environment. Hippocrates believed that political conditions also influenced health, asserting that democracy strengthens character and body, while despotism has the opposite effect. In his treatise "On the Nature of Man," he articulated the doctrine of the four bodily humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. When these humors are in proper qualitative and quantitative balance, a person is healthy. The so-called "Hippocratic Oath," which medical practitioners swear, is grounded in the principle of "do no harm" to the patient.

History

Herodotus (484-425 BCE) is considered the father of history. Nearly contemporaneously with Thucydides (460-400 BCE), he focused on the study of change, that is, events in human history, relying on experience—either personal observation or accounts from those who had seen or heard. Unlike mythological thinking, Herodotus anchored events to specific times and places, seeking explanations through relationships between states and psychological factors. This approach signifies the emergence of a distinctly scientific style of thought, where the observation of immediate events and their description form the foundation of understanding reality.