4 ms·
A huge surprise to the ancient Greeks, who outlined the concept of reason centuries before Christianity appeared, and invented a fair amount of math and the fou
by TheOtherHobbes 6mo ago
A huge surprise to the ancient Greeks, who outlined the concept of reason centuries before Christianity appeared, and invented a fair amount of math and the foundations of empiricism while they were at it.
In fact Christianity halted scientific progress in the West for around a millennium. Before the Renaissance rediscovered Greek philosophy, the Christian world operated on hierarchy, rhetoric, scholasticism, and violence.
- AnimalMuppet 6mo agoThey did. But they never developed it into science in the modern sense. They had a universe in which the gods did random things for random reasons. That didn't lead them to expect a rational basis for the construction of the whole universe, and so they never investigated in the way that early modern science did.
- nephihaha 6mo agoThe ancient Greeks had the opportunity to invent the steam engine, but didn't. They had the beginnings of steam power, but slaves were cheaper.
- notlenin 6mo agocommon misconception: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus... > As we’ll see, the Roman Empire was never close to an industrial revolution – a great many of the preconditions were missing – but the idea that it might have been on the cusp of being something like a modern economy did once have its day in the scholarship
- nephihaha 6mo agoI was talking about the Greeks, not the Romans, entirely different civilisation(s) the Romans conquered. Look up "aeolipile" or "Hero's Engine". The ancient Greek steam powered device. Not sure why I'm voted down for stating historical fact. The Greeks had the beginning of steam power but never took it to the levels of the industrial revolution. If we look at ancient China too, they had a number of brilliant inventions but did not always follow through on them either.
- notlenin 6mo agofrom the article I linked: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus... > Early tinkering with the idea of using heat to create steam to power rotary motion – the core function of a steam-engine – go all the way back to Vitruvius (c. 80 BC -15 AD) and Heron of Alexandria (c. 10-70 AD). With the benefit of hindsight we can see they were tinkering with an importance principle but the devices they actually produced – the aeolipile – had no practical use – it’s fearsomely fuel inefficient, produces little power and has to be refilled with water (that then has to be heated again from room temperature to enable operation). > Apart from the use of steam pressure, the aeolipile shares very little in common with practical steam engine designs and the need to continually refill and heat the water reservoir would have limited its utility in any case.
- nephihaha 6mo ago"the aeolipile – had no practical use" It could have easily been improved as later models were. It would require large amounts of fuel and water... Which the UK did centuries later I suppose. But one would not expect good fuel efficiency in early prototypes.
- tempaccountabcd 6mo agoReddit would be that way. > In fact Christianity halted scientific progress in the West for around a millennium. Before the Renaissance rediscovered Greek philosophy, the Christian world operated on hierarchy, rhetoric, scholasticism, and violence. I'm surprised anyone is still repeating such a laughable myth. Almost everything from classical antiquity would've been lost if not for Christians copying texts. > Before the Renaissance rediscovered Greek philosophy, the Christian world operated on hierarchy, rhetoric, scholasticism, and violence. Do you know what scholasticism means?
- jimbokun 6mo agoAll of those things predate Christianity. Well maybe not scholasticism.