This book challenges several widespread views concerning Aristotle's methods and practices of scientific and philosophical research. Taking central topics in psychology, zoology, astronomy and politics, Professor Lloyd explores generally unrecognised tensions between Aristotle's deeply held a priori convictions and his remarkable empirical honesty in the face of complexities in the data or perceived difficult or exceptional cases. The picture that emerges of Aristotle's actual engagement in scientific research and of his own reflections on that research is substantially more complex (...) than is usually allowed. (shrink)

This book is a study of the origins and development of Greek science, focusing especially on the interactions of scientific and traditional patterns of thought from the sixth to the fourth centuries BC. The starting point is an examination of how certain Greek authors deployed the category of 'magic' and attacked magical beliefs and practices, and these attacks are related to their complex background in Greek medicine and speculative thought. In his second chapter Dr Lloyd outlines the development, and (...) assesses the significance, of the theory and practice of argument in early Greek science, and he follows this with a study of the development of empirical research. Finally the author confronts the question of why the Greeks invented science: what precisely was their contribution to science, and what social, economic, ideological and political factors had a bearing on the growth of science in Greece. (shrink)

Western philosophy and science are responsible for constructing some powerful tools of investigation, aiming at discovering the truth, delivering robust explanations, verifying conjectures, showing that inferences are sound and demonstrating results conclusively. By contrast reasoning that depends on analogies has often been viewed with suspicion. Professor Lloyd first explores the origins of those Western ideals, criticises some of their excesses and redresses the balance in favour of looser, admittedly non-demonstrative analogical reasoning. For this he takes examples both from ancient (...) Greek and Chinese thought and from the materials of recent ethnography to show how different ancient and modern cultures have developed different styles of reasoning. He also develops two original but controversial ideas, that of semantic stretch and the multidimensionality of reality. (shrink)

Taking a set of central issues from ancient Greek medicine and biology, this book studies firstly, the interaction between scientific theorising and folklore or popular assumptions; secondly, the ideological character of scientific inquiry. Topics of interest in the philosphy and sociology of science illuminated here include the relationship between primitive thought and early science, the roles of the consensus on the scientific community, tradition and the authority of the written text, in the development of science.

ABSTRACTThis article, which summarises some of the main arguments of Analogical Investigations [Lloyd 2015], undertakes a comparative cross-cultural critique of the dominant Western view that downgrades analogy especially when that is contrasted unfavourably with a notion of axiomatic-deductive demonstration aiming to secure incontrovertible conclusions. It draws on materials from ancient Greece, ancient China and modern social anthropology and philosophy of science to explore the problems of translation and mutual intelligibility. It develops the idea of semantic stretch to qualify the (...) literal/metaphorical dichotomy and the notion of the multidimensionality of reality to clarify aspects of the controversy between realism and relativism. (shrink)

‘Saving the appearances’, , is a slogan that, in its time, stood or was made to stand for many different methodological positions in many different branches of ancient natural science. It is not my aim, in this paper, to attempt to tackle the subject as a whole. I shall concentrate on just one inquiry, astronomy. Nor, with astronomy, can I do justice to all the complexities of what was certainly one of the central methodological issues, if not the central issue, (...) in the history of ancient theoretical astronomy. I have a quite limited aim, to examine the foundations, and test the applicability, of a widespread and influential line of interpretation of ancient Greek astronomy according to which it was essentially, or at least predominantly, what we may call ‘instrumentalist’ in character—that is, broadly speaking, that Greek astronomical theories were devices or fictions put forward purely for the sake of calculations with no claims to correspond with physical reality. (shrink)

We tend to assume that our map of the intellectual disciplines is valid cross-culturally. G. E. R. Lloyd challenges this in relation to eight main areas of human endeavour, namely philosophy, mathematics, history, medicine, art, law, religion, and science, by examining how the disciplines were conceived and developed in different times and places.

This book challenges the common assumption that the predominant focus of the history of science should be the achievements of Western scientists since the so-called Scientific Revolution. The conceptual frameworks within which the members of earlier societies and of modern indigenous groups worked admittedly pose severe problems for our understanding. But rather than dismiss them on the grounds that they are incommensurable with our own and to that extent unintelligible, we should see them as offering opportunities for us to revise (...) many of our own preconceptions. We should accept that the realities to be accounted for are multi-dimensional and that all such accounts are to some extent value-laden. In the process insights from current anthropology and the study of ancient Greece and China especially are brought to bear to suggest how the remit of the history of science can be expanded to achieve a cross-cultural perspective on the problems. (shrink)

As modern foreign policy and international relations encompass more and more scientific issues, we are moving towards a new type of diplomacy, known as "Science Diplomacy." Will this new diplomacy of the 21st century prove to be more effective than past diplomacy for the big issues facing the world, such as climate change, food and water insecurity, diminishing biodiversity, pandemic disease, public health, genomics or environmental collapse, mineral exploitation, health and international scientific endeavours such as those in the space and (...) the Antarctic? Providing a new area of academic focus that has only gathered momentum in the last few years, this book considers these questions by bringing together a distinguished team of international specialists to look at various facets of how diplomacy and science are influenced by each other. The book not only dissects the ways that politics, science and diplomacy have become intertwined, but also highlights how the world's seemingly most intractable problems can be tackled with international collaboration and diplomacy that is rooted in science, and driven by technology. It, therefore, challenges the conventional wisdom concerning the juxtaposition of science and the world of diplomacy. (shrink)

In The Ambitions of Curiosity, first published in 2002, one of the world's foremost philosophers of science explores the origins and growth of systematic inquiry in Greece, China, and Mesopotamia. Professor Lloyd examines which factors stimulated or inhibited this development, and whose interests were served. He asks who set the agenda? What was the role of the state in sponsoring, supporting or blocking research, in such areas as historiography, natural philosophy, medical research, astronomy, technology, pure and applied mathematics? How (...) were each of those fields defined and developed in different ancient societies? How did truly innovative thinkers persuade their own contemporaries to accept their work? Professor Lloyd explores the different routes those developments took in China, Greece and Mesopotamia, and demonstrates the unexpected results of many research efforts, as well as the tensions between state control and individual innovation and the different ways they were resolved - problems that remain central to scientific research today. (shrink)

How were the aims of philosophy and the responsibilities of philosophers conceived in ancient Greece and China? How were the learned elite recruited and controlled; how were their speculations and advice influenced by the different types of audiences they faced and the institutions in which they worked? How was a yearning for invulnerability reconciled with a sense of human frailty? In each chapter of this fascinating analysis ancient Greek and Chinese ideas and practices are used as a basis for critical (...) reflections on the predicaments we continue to face today, with a particular focus on the key Greek ideas of the equal participation of all citizens in the political process, and on the key Chinese one of a dedication to the ideal of the welfare of all under heaven. (shrink)

This book was first published in 1991. The study of ancient science and its relations with Greek philosophy has made a significant and growing contribution to our understanding of ancient thought and civilisation. This collection of articles on Greek science contains fifteen of the most important papers published by G. E. R. Lloyd in this area since 1961, together with three newer articles. The topics range over all areas and periods of Greek science, from the earliest Presocratic philosophers to (...) Ptolemy and Galen. In each case the article is preceded by an introduction that assesses scholarly debate on the topic since the original publication. Professor Lloyd also suggests modifications and developments to his own position in the light of those debates and his own further research. (shrink)

The Symposia Aristotelica were inaugurated at Oxford in 1957. They are conferences of select groups of Aristotelian scholars from the UK, USA and Europe, and are held every three years. In 1975 the meeting was held in Cambridge and was devoted to Aristotle's psychological treatises, the De anima and the Parva uaturalia. The members of the conference discussed some of the much debated problems of Aristotle's psychology and broached important new topics such as his ideas on imagination. Dr Lloyd (...) and Professor Owen have collected and edited the papers presented to the Symposium and provided an analytical index. (shrink)

The question of determining the genuine works of Hippocrates, a topic already much discussed by the ancient commentators, still continues to be actively debated, although the disagreements among scholars remain, it seems, almost as wide as ever. In comparatively recent times, Edelstein's IIEPI AEPQN and two subsequent studies of his written in the 1930s and marked a turning-point in that they presented a particularly clear and comprehensive statement of the sceptical view, according to which Hippocrates is, as Wilamowitz put it (...) long ago, ‘ein beriihmter Name ohne den Hintergrund irgend einer Schrift’. (shrink)

What are we to make of statements that jaguars see themselves as humans, or of doubts about the boundary between dreams and waking? Jointly authored by an anthropologist and a philosopher, this book investigates some of the most puzzling ideas and practices reported in modern ethnography and ancient philosophy, concerning humans, animals, persons, spirits, agency, selfhood, consciousness, nature, life, death, disease and health. The study's twin aims are first to explore the possibility of achieving a better understanding of the materials (...) we discuss and then to see what lessons we can draw from them to challenge and revise our own fundamental assumptions. (shrink)

Howe et al.'s rejection of traditional discussion of talent is clearly acceptable, but their alternative has a weakness. They stress practice and hard work while referring vaguely to some basic biological substrate. High scores on a valid test of general intelligence provide a cultural-genetic basis for talented performance in a wide variety of specialties, ranging from engineering to the humanities. These choices may be entirely environmentally determined, and the highest levels of achievement do require practice and hard work.

Did science and philosophy develop differently in ancient Greece and ancient China? If so, can we say why? This book consists of a series of detailed studies of cosmology, natural philosophy, mathematics and medicine that suggest the answer to the first question is yes. To answer the second, the author relates the science produced in each ancient civilization first to the values of the society in question and then to the institutions within which the scientists and philosophers worked.

Let me discuss first the principal points raised in the extensive commentaries from the three invited respondents. I shall next turn to the other shorter comments in the second part of this respons...

This inaugural lecture considers three main aspects of the relationship between science and morality in Greco-Roman antiquity: first some of the ancient debates on the morality of particular scientific research programmes, especially in connection with the practice of human and animal dissection and vivisection; secondly ancient attempts to secure the autonomy and objectivity of natural scientific inquiry; and thirdly the continuing influence - in certain areas of ancient science - of values, including moral and political values, and of the assumption (...) of the privileged position occupied by human beings in the animal kingdom and the cosmos. (shrink)

The pre-conditions and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are inter-connected with those of climate change, prompting reflection on how to re-think the relations between human and non-human on a changing planet. This essay considers that issue with reference to the contrasts between the philosophies of Descartes and Spinoza, who offered radically different approaches to the conceptualization of human presence in Nature.

This essay explores the extent to which Aristotle’s zoological researches were influenced by his general psychological theory and specific psychological doctrines, and the match or mismatch between the results of his zoological investigations and his general position on questions such as definition, essence, form, and matter. It argues that psychology provides the major articulating framework for Aristotle’s zoology. Certain key points in his zoology and specific psychological doctrines influence his interpretation of the biological phenomena.