Seminar of History of sciences of antiquity

Teacher(s)

Lempire Jean;

Language

French

Prerequisites

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Main themes

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

Learning outcomes

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 (for ex. Egyptian arithmetic, Euclidean geometry, the "Antikythera mechanism", the astronomical system of Ptolemy, ancient calendars, the theory of humors in Hippocrates and Galen, etc.).The importance of Alexandria as an intellectual and scientific center (around 300 BC - 2nd century AD) will also be highlighted.

Teaching methods

Lectures with demonstrations of the more technical topics.
Discussions on the contributions of ancient scientific disciplines to the constitution of Western pre-modern science.

Evaluation methods

Online resources

Online documentation for several topics.

Bibliography

Références données au fil du cours.

Teaching materials

• Documentation (complémentaire aux notes des étudiants) - en ce compris le powerpoint du cours - disponible sur le serveur Moodle.

Faculty or entity

FIAL