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

Protrepticus as false charges and personal
prejudice (
Panath. 25), the elderly orator answers resentfully that in fact he
rather approves of the modern program of education (geometry, astronomy,
and ‘eristic dialogues’), in which, however, young men delight more than they
should (26). Then his tone grows harsher. As good as mathematics is for the
young, inasmuch as it gives them an occupation and keeps them out of many
other harmful things, it is no longer suitable for a grown man. Indeed, even
those who have become so thoroughly versed in it as to instruct others fail to
use opportunely the knowledge that they possess and, in practical activities,
prove less cultivated than their students and even than their servants (27–29).
It is obvious that in the course of the fifty years separating the
Panathenaicus
from the
Busiris, Isocrates’ notions of the exact sciences and their utility re-
mained unchanged. What did change was the target of his criticism. His Busiris
realized something that the Pythagoreans and the Academics failed to see:
namely, that grown and respectable people should know better than to study
mathematics, which is good only for the upbringing of young men.
127
On the
whole, however, Isocrates’ position lies far from the narrow-minded self-assur-
ance of ignorance. His acknowledgement of the pedagogical importance of
mathematical studies is perfectly correct.
128
Of course, he gave preference to
his own system of education, but even Plato, who valued mathematical sciences
much more highly than Isocrates did, regarded them as but the threshold of dia-
lectic (
Res. 536d 4f.). Isocrates was also right, of course, in denying mathemat-
ics’ beneficial influence on morals. In his assertion that certain teachers of
mathematics prove extremely foolish in practical affairs, one cannot help
seeing a parallel to Aristotle’s remark that Hippocrates of Chios was thought
foolish in everything except mathematics.
129
Not far from Isocrates’ position is
125
Soph. 21, Antid. 50, 270f.; Burk, A. Die Pädagogik des Isokrates, Würzburg 1923,
65f.
126
Düring.
Protrepticus, 20f., 33f.
127
toù~ mèn
presbutérou~ ëpì tà mégista tõn pragmátwn Étaxen, toù~ dè new-
térou~ … ëp’ @strologí+ kaì logismo$~ kaì gewmetrí+ diatríbein Épeisen
(
Bus. 23)
128
Burk,
op. cit., 140.
129
See above, 69 n. 104. Isocrates too might have meant Hippocrates, rather than the
Academics.

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Chapter 2: Science as técnh: theory and history
76
the discourse of the mature Aristotle on the difference between ëpist2mh and
frónhsi~, which concludes that for a young man mathematics cannot substi-
tute for practical reason based on experience (
EN 1142a 11–20).
From the point of view of what is primarily required of técnh, Isocrates’
criticism of mathematics will turn out to touch upon only one point, but that one
is decisive: its utility. Isocrates did not deny the possibility of learning mathe-
matics or the existence of specialists in it and a specific purpose to it. Moreover,
he was ready to acknowledge it as the ëpist2mh that arrives at firm knowledge
(
Antid. 264; Panath. 28–30). It is the unattainability of ëpist2mh and its result-
ing uselessness in
human affairs – the only subject of interest to Isocrates – that
made the rhetorician exclude it from the number of important reference points.
For Isocrates, the chief measure of human judgments and actions was not
ëpist2mh, but dóxa.
130
Explaining his ideas of ‘wisdom’ and ‘philosophy’,
Isocrates writes:
My view of this question is, as it happens, very simple. For since it is not in the na-
ture of man to attain a science (ëpist2mh) by the possession of which we can
know positively what we should do or what we should say, in the next resort I
hold that man to be wise who is able by his powers of conjecture to arrive gen-
erally at the best course (!~ ëpì tò polú), and I hold that man to be a philosopher
who occupies himself with the studies from which he will most quickly gain that
kind of insight (frónhsi~).
131
This choice characterizes the difference between Isocrates and many of the
Presocratics
132
as well as Plato, who were convinced of the attainability of
‘knowledge’ and hence preferred it to ‘opinion’.
133
Among Isocrates’ allies in
preferring relative certainty and accuracy of knowledge to absolute truth were
many of the Sophists and Hippocratic physicians.
134
Later, Aristotle attenuated
the contrast between dóxa and ëpist2mh by assigning to theoretical science
and, in particular, to physics the kind of regularity that he called !~ ëpì tò
polú.
135
130
Each time that Isocrates compares these notions, he invariably shows his preference
for dóxa: Soph. 8, Hel. 5, Antid. 184, 270–271, Panath. 30–31. Outside this anti-
thesis, ëpist2mh is often used to mean técnh (Mikkola, E. Isokrates. Seine An-