©James Jope
Richard Carrier (www.richardcarrier.info)
is a prominent freethinker and historian of natural philosophy. His previous
books include Science education in the
early Roman Empire.
In The Scientist, Carrier
argues regarding science (then known as natural philosophy) what Gibbon argued
regarding classical civilization: that it made progress until it was extinguished by the Church. In
particular, he rejects the view that the Romans themselves neglected science because
they lacked the mindset to continue the scientific activity of Hellenistic
Greeks, and sets out to demonstrate not only (1) scientific progress, but (2) a
positive attitude towards scientific progress in Roman society during the High
Empire.
In spite of the quibbles which it will be my duty as a
reviewer to express, this is a very impressive book. The documentation is more
than extensive; it is immense. The argumentation is skillful and persuasive. And
the thesis is a timely contribution to an important issue.
(1) Scientific progress
Literary classicists who have read one or even a few
handbooks on ancient science will be surprised at the array of discoveries
which Carrier recounts. I did not know, for example, of the work of Strato of
Lampsacus on gravity and inertia, which approximated Galileo’s findings. Chiding
others for emphasizing what the Romans did not do instead of what they did,
Carrier discusses lost as well as extant works. While the former are simply
omitted by some scholars, we do know something about them from other ancient
sources, and Carrier ferrets out such information. Works were lost, he argues,
not because they lacked merit or even popularity in the Roman world, but
because of medieval copiers’ “preference for simple, fabulous, amusing, or
entertaining work, over the boring but… technically superior scientific books”.
Carrier documents more than two hundred
useful, scientifically based inventions under Rome. He does exaggerate a few of
these: medical application of eels is “electroshock therapy”, the Corinthian diolkos is a “railway”, five-story
buildings are “high-rise apartments”. But this hardly diminishes the impact of
the entire assemblage. However, some items might be susceptible to his own strict
criteria by which he dismisses medieval accomplishments as trivial modifications,
rediscoveries of previously known facts, or not science-based (p. 16).
(2) Attitudes
It was a common topos
under the Empire to bemoan contemporary circumstances as manifestations of
decline, in natural science as well as other areas of discourse. However, Carrier
succeeds in revealing a diversity of views which included also an awareness and
appreciation of progress, not only among scientists themselves, but from
surprising sources like Cicero and Seneca. Even the complaint of decadence
could be cast as a call for more dedicated efforts by contemporaries or as
implying the existence of other observers who disagreed with such pessimism.
Every philosophical sect with the exception of the Cynics valued natural
philosophy. The symposia recorded or imagined by Imperial authors also praised
science. Texts like the Aetna make
clear that knowledge could still be sought for its own sake by the ‘practical’
Romans. And although the emperors did not formally create research institutions
like the Hellenistic ones, there were appeals for them to do so. Finally, while
some senators may have disdained experimentation, the most notable scientists tended to come from
equestrian backgrounds.
Christians
Carrier ascribes to the view of some previous authors (e.g.,
Marshall Claggett, G.E.R. Lloyd) that, although Christians did not originate
the anti-intellectual values which arrested scientific progress, taking them up
especially from less educated pagans, they greatly escalated them. Carrier
examines the attitudes of Tertullian, Lactantius, Origen and others and finds scientific
knowledge and methods dismissed contemptuously, replaced entirely by
supernatural criteria.
Although the New Testament nowhere discusses natural
philosophy in particular, Carrier reveals a core of antiscientific values in
its implicit epistemology. Nothing is ever “proven” by logic or investigation,
but always by spiritual inspiration, miracles, etc.
Medievalists
The Middle Age is beyond the scope of the book, but Carrier
offers his rather dark view, arguing against medievalists’ attempts to find
some creditable scientific advances. It is usually suggested that the scribes
made a contribution to science by transmitting a few ancient works. Carrier
argues that preservation is not progress. The glass is not half-full, but
half-empty.
Quibbles
I have mentioned the strength of Carrier’s argumentation.
Sometimes he is perhaps too combative--dismissing rivals’ views as “stupid”,
ridiculing their inconsistencies, and once even suggesting that their books be
burned! (p. 464)—yet his own logic and evidence suffice to refute them. In
spite of his assiduous documentation, Carrier seems to have surprisingly missed
some very relevant works. He presents Aristotle as the founder of science, but
is unaware of the excellent work on this point by Armand Marie Leroi (The Lagoon: How Aristotle invented Science, 2014,
also reviewed on this site). He cites Marcus Aurelius, but not the famous
diatribe of Lucretius, for the view that life essentially does not change and
has nothing new to offer. In fact,
serious use of Lucretius is surprisingly absent from this book. Carrier’s
principal authority on Epicureanism is Cicero, and he cites Virgil’s felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
without acknowledging that it alludes to Lucretius. Finally, it is a little
unfair to classify men like Ptolemy and Galen as Roman simply because they
flourished under the Pax Romana. Lucian and other Second Sophistic authors made
it very clear that the Greeks still clung to a separate cultural identity
throughout this period. However, it is true, as Carrier argues, that although
technical scientific works (Ptolemy, Galen) were in Greek, the excellent
popularizations which appeared in Latin (Celsus, Seneca, Pliny) attest the
interest of Romans in the scientific enterprise.
Slowly but surely, ancient science was moving in the right
direction until it fell under Christian domain.
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