Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Introduction: Cosmic Conjunctions

1 Looking for Science
1.1 Unfounded speculation
1.2 Footnotes to Thales
1.3 Footnotes to Pythagoras
1.4 Science without knowledge
1.5 History of science without history
1.6 History of science without science
1.7 Old-time history of science
Notes

2 Azure Pastures: An Early Ionian Model
2.1 Hesiod's mythical cosmography
2.2 Ionian theories
2.3 The Meteorological Model
Notes

3 Borrowed Light: The Insights of Parmenides
3.1 Fifth-century advances
3.2 Three insights: Heliophotism, planetary unification, sphericity
3.3 The power of a model
3.4 Conjectures
3.5 Conceptual advances
Notes

4 Empire of the Sun: Implications of Heliophotism, and a New Model
4.1 Antiphraxis and other theoretical implications
4.2 A new physics
4.3 Anaxagoras' new cosmology and astronomy
4.4 The Lithic Model
Notes

5 Darkened Suns and Falling Stars: Heaven-sent Proofs
5.1 Lives of the eminent philosophers
5.2 Eclipses
5.3 The meteor
5.4 The comet
5.5 The Nile floods
Notes

6 Lunar Revolutions: The Triumph of the New Astronomy
6.1 A community effort
6.2 Anaxagoras' theory
6.3 Other theories of the fifth century
6.4 Characteristics of the Lithic Model
6.5 The doxography
6.6 Plato's heavenly sphere
6.7 Aristotle's paradigm
6.8 A scientific consensus
Notes

7 The Geometry of the Heavens
7.1 The story of early Greek astronomy
7.2 Scientific Progress
7.3 Historical and Philosophical Significance
Notes

Appendix 1: Anaxagoras in the Historiography of Science
Notes
Appendix 2: Science and History
Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

Daniel W. Graham is Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University. He has written, translated, or edited seven volumes on ancient philosophy and has published numerous scholarly articles on Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and the Presocratic philosophers. He does research in history of philosophy and history of science. He is president of the International Association for Presoratic Studies and a member of the editorial board of Apeiron.

Reviews

"... Graham has written an intriguing book on a much neglected aspect of Presocratic thinking." --Journal of the History of Philosophy
"Graham has produced a fascinating and enjoyable challenge to the standard narrative of scientific progress. The passion of his commitment to rehabilitating Parmenides and Anaxagoras as successful scientists is clear throughout."--Jenny Bryan, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"An especially interesting and valuable part of the book is Graham's reflections on the philosophy of science and on the role of historians of science, both of which he gives in the early chapters in a well-reasoned appendix. Highly recommended." --D.E. Hogg, emeritus, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, CHOICE