Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (U.C. Berkeley)
And the History of Health Sciences Program (UCSF)
Francesca Rochberg
U.C. Riverside
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The Place of Babylonian Astronomy in the General History of Science
This lecture focuses on the conceptions and misconceptions of Babylonian astronomy in the historiography of ancient science generally. The history of the historiography of ancient science exposes what our idea of science has been and is. It affords us insight into trends in the history and philosophy of science that have affected and still affect our approach to ancient science. It will be seen how our understanding of Babylonian astronomy suffered from an insistence upon a definition of science as a distinctive form of knowledge and from the reconstruction of a linear evolution in which science originated with the Greeks and has followed a course characterized by progressive growth ever since.
4:00PM
Monday, December 5
140 Barrows Hall
UC Berkeley
Co-Sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Studies
And the Townsend Center for the Humanities
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: diana@berkeley.edu
