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

Cat. 7b
27f.,
APo 75b 37f., SE 171b 12f., Phys. 185a 14f.; Eud. fr. 139–140, cf. 59 A 38 on
Anaxagoras). That is about all we know of Sophists’ preoccupation with the exact
sciences.
3
On the utilitarian attitude of Socrates toward the exact sciences, see Xen.
Mem.
IV,7.1–8 (in this case Xenophon is more reliable than Plato). The Socratics Antis-
thenes and Aristippus also took a negative view of science. See also Olson, R
.
Science, scientism and anti-science in Hellenic Athens: A new Whig interpretation,
HS 16 (1976) 179–199.
4
Antid. 261–266, Panath. 26–29. See his programmatic statement: “It is much better
to have an approximate idea of useful things than the exact knowledge of useless
ones.” Isocrates does not deny, however, the pedagogical importance of mathematics
(see below, 74).
5
Eur. fr. 913 Nauck; Ar.
Nub. 1480f.; Gorg. Hel. 13 = 82 B 11; VM 1; De aere 2; Isoc.
Antid. 268; cf. also metewrología = @dolescía in Plato (Crat. 404b 7, Res. 488e

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Chapter 2: Science as técnh: theory and history
46
With time, this initially practical conception of técnh, opposed both to natu-
ral philosophy and to
mathe¯mata, took a more and more intellectual turn, until
it finally served as an interpretative model of science itself. To a considerable
degree, this change can be accounted for by the fact that the circle of disciplines
taught by the Sophists included subjects related to intellectual activities that,
though practically oriented, had little to do with traditional handicrafts. The
very novelty of their pedagogical practice made it necessary for the Sophists to
explain and justify it by arguing that the subjects they taught qualified as técnh,
since they involved both skill and knowledge. As a result, the Sophists con-
siderably enriched and developed the notion of técnh. Their methodological
research on the problem of what técnh is and under what conditions it actually
emerges laid the basis for the history of culture, understood as the sum total of
different técnai.
6
Compared to modern views on handicraft, art, and even technology – the no-
tions we now use to render técnh – the intellectualism of the Sophistic and, on
the whole, of the classical understanding of técnh seems highly unusual. It can,
at best, be compared to the intellectualism, no less remote from us, of Greek
ethics, which made it possible for Socrates to use the notion of técnh in creat-
ing the new science of philosophical ethics. The Socrates of Plato’s dialogues
quite naturally uses the word, which originally referred to the art of a cook or a
stonemason, in discussing intellectual and moral problems. This seems to indi-
cate that he relied not only on the common use of the word, but also on the
the-
ory of técnh that had already been developed by the Sophists. F. Heinimann,
who studied this theory, gives these as the common characteristics of a técnh:
1) técnh is meant to be useful; 2) each técnh serves a definite purpose: medi-
cine keeps one healthy, agriculture provides one with food, etc.; 3) técnh is
based on the knowledge of specialists who are in command of all means
necessary to their ends; and 4) each técnh can be transferred by teaching; only
that which can be transferred by teaching is entitled to be called a técnh.
7
It is
obvious that these characteristics are applicable to more than art or handicraft.
8,
Phdr. 270a 4, Polit. 299b 7). See Capelle, W. METEWROLOGIA, Philologus
71 (1912) 414–448. Admittedly, some of the Sophists show a certain interest in
natural philosophy.
6
The problem of the origin of culture interested Archelaus as well (60 A 4), but his
ideas do not appear original, compared with those of his Sophist contemporaries.
We know little of the views of his teacher Anaxagoras on this subject (59 B 4, 21);
their reconstruction (Uxkull-Gyllenband, W.