Seminar of History of sciences of antiquity

Teacher(s)

Lempire Jean;

Language

French

Main themes

Study of the development of some specific sciences (Arithmetic, Geometry, Geography, Astronomy, Medicine, etc.) in Ancient Egypt, Babylonian and Greco-Roman civilisations.

Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	At the end of this course of lectures, the student must understand how the modern concept of science was made up from the Egyptian, Babylonian and Ancient Greek civilisations.

Content

In a diachronic way (from the Early Antiquity to the 4th century AD), we will examine the developments of the exact (Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy) and natural (Medicine included) sciences in the Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek-Roman cultures, more particularly trough the study of technical topics and cases (the Euclidean geometry, the "Antikythera mechanism", the astronomical system of Ptolemy, calendars, the theory of humors in Hippocrates and Galen, etc.).
A work (about 5-8 pages) is required from students on a topic of personal interest in the history of ancient sciences (in Egyptian, Babylonian or Greek-Roman cultures).

Teaching methods

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information in this section is particularly likely to change.

Lectures (face-to-face) with demonstrations of the more technical topics.
Interaction between students about the topic of their own work.
Depending on the evolution of the health situation, these modalities could be transposed into hybrid mode (co-modality: face-to-face for one group of students, distance learning for the other, according to a principle of alternation), or even distance learning only.

Evaluation methods

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information in this section is particularly likely to change.

Online resources

Documentation (complementary to student notes) - including the course powerpoint - on the Moodle server.

Bibliography

Références données au fil du cours.

Faculty or entity

FIAL