Leonid Zhmud The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity

mathemata mathematicis scribuntur. This trait of the Peripatetic
historiography of science is determined, ultimately, by the fact that the concep-
tion of exact sciences formed in the Lyceum appeared to be very close to the
views of the mathematicians themselves. Since the dependence of histori-
ography on the general notions of science is quite obvious, our book also con-
siders such problems as the comprehension of science by scientists themselves,
notions of boundaries between the exact sciences and natural philosophy, the
philosophy and methodology of science in the Academy and the Lyceum, the
classification of sciences, etc.
Outlining briefly this range of problems, let us touch upon the quite ani-
mated discussion several decades ago of whether there was in classical Greece
a notion of progress, and specifically of scientific progress, i.e., the idea of a
45
Eudemus understood the history of mathematics as a chain of discoveries that links
scientists to each other; cf. “Geschichte einer Wissenschaft ist meines Erachtens:
wie ihre Lehren sind entdeckt, bekannt gemacht, bestimmt, berichtiget, dargetan,
erläutert, angewandt worden.” (Kästner, A. G.
Geschichte der Mathematik seit der
Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften bis an das Ende des 18.Jh.s, Vol.1, Göttingen
1796, 13).

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3. Greek notions of science and progress
17
steady growth of knowledge. L. Edelstein demonstrated quite convincingly that
classical Antiquity was not unaware of the idea of progress.
46
One should be-
ware, however, of taking an idea for an ideology. The popular 19
th
-century con-
viction that in the
future we will experience constant improvement in all
spheres of human life is not to be found in Antiquity. The Greek notion of pro-
gress was based preeminently, though not exclusively, on achievements in
human knowledge and technology and hence proved much more limited than
the 19
th
-century one.
47
Even granting that some notions of progress current at
the time did include the idea of steady social and moral improvement, it was the
real achievements of the
past and the present, not imaginary future prospects,
that the Greeks were concerned with.
48
Such a view, free of the ‘totality’ of the
19
th
-century progressivist ideology and its eager anticipation of the future,
49
could comfortably coexist with a cyclic conception of history as, for example,
in Aristotle or, later, in Jean Bodin.
50
The limited or, rather, realistic character of the classical idea of progress is
due, first of all, to the difference in scale between the actual changes that took
place in ancient Greece and in Western Europe respectively in the eighth –
fourth centuries BC and in the 15
th
–19
th
centuries AD.
51
We should keep in
mind that the idea of progress made its first appearance only three hundred
years after the emergence of writing in Greece and less than one hundred years
after the origin of philosophy and science. In Europe, which had infinitely more
opportunities to ascertain the steady character of progress, this idea took root
only after the French Revolution and the beginning of the Industrial Revol-
ution. The limited character of ancient notions of progress underscores their
scientific and, in a larger sense, cognitive component, which was not ques-
tioned even by those who, on the whole, denied the existence of such notions in
classical Greece.
52
Without the idea of the progressive growth of knowledge,
the history of science would have hardly come about, and we have abundant
evidence that the science of the past and the present was indeed described by
the Greeks in the terms of ‘progress’. In the fifth – fourth centuries BC, the idea
46
Edelstein, L.