Knowledge, Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing

This book explores the relationship between theory and practice in ancient Greek and Roman scientific and technical texts.

Marco Formisano (Edited by), Philip van der Eijk (Edited by)

9781316620625, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 August 2021

296 pages, 12 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.7 cm, 0.442 kg

The relationship between theory and practice, in other words between norms indicated in a text and their extra-textual application, is one of the most fascinating issues in the history and theory of science. Yet this aspect has often been taken for granted and never explored in depth. The essays contained in this volume provide a complex and nuanced discussion of this relationship as it emerges in ancient Greek and Roman culture in a number of fields, such as agriculture, architecture, the art of love, astronomy, ethics, mechanics, medicine, pharmacology. The main focus is on the textuality of processes of the transmission of knowledge and its application in various fields. Given that a text always contains complex and destabilising aspects that cannot be reduced to the specific subject matter it discusses, to what extent can and do ancient texts support extra-textual applicability?

1. From words to acts? Philip van der Eijk and Marco Formisano
2. The poetics of knowledge Marco Formisano
3. Machines on paper: from words to acts in ancient mechanics Markus Asper
4. Si quis voluerit: Vitruvius on architecture as 'the art of the possible' Elisa Romano
5. Caesar's Rhine bridge and its feasibility in Giovanni Giocondo's Expositio pontis Ronny Kaiser
6. From words to acts: on the applicability of Hippocratic therapy Pilar Pérez Cañizares
7. Naso magister erat – sed cui bono? On not taking the poet's teaching seriously Alison Sharrock
8. From techn? to kakotechnia: use and abuse of ancient cosmetic texts Laurence Totelin
9. From discourses to handbook: the Encheiridion of Epictetus as a practical guide to life Gerard Boter
10. The problem of practical applicability in Ptolemy's Geography Klaus Geus
11. Living according to the seasons – the power of parap?gmata Gerd Grasshoff
12. Auctoritas in the garden: Columella's poetic strategy in De re rustica 10 Christiane Reitz
13. The generous text: animal intuition, human knowledge, and written transmission in Pliny's books on medicine Brooke Holmes
14. From descriptions to acts: the paradoxical animals of the ancients from a cognitive perspective Pietro Li Causi.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]