The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire by Richard Carrier

Author:Richard Carrier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing
Published: 2017-12-11T05:00:00+00:00

4. IN PRAISE OF THE SCIENTIST

In Science Education in the Early Roman Empire I explored to what extent science and natural philosophy held a relatively marginalized position in ancient education. I found they were still well-enough represented there that the most educated among the elite were familiar with what had been achieved, and with the basic outlines of the sciences themselves, and were impressed by what they knew. And in the previous chapter here, you have seen that the value of advancing the sciences was also widely enough understood that scientific progress continued, and continued to be lauded, up to the 3rd century A.D. We have already surveyed occasions in ancient literature when the specific issue of scientific progress is mentioned. Now we will broaden our attention to see how widely science and natural philosophy were praised in general.

In every section that follows, we will survey only a small but representative sample of what could be said, enough to establish the general point to be made in each case. There is already enough evidence here to confirm that many among the elite held science in great esteem, and regarded its pursuit as noble and morally beneficial, or practical and useful, or both. There are almost no comparable sentiments from their Christian contemporaries (as we shall see in the following chapter).

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