ARTISTS OF MEASURING

The title of this entry alludes to Sir Isaac Newton’s description of geometry as “the art of measuring.” Although its subject is apparently not another round of Newton, but Euclid and other Greek scientists, there is a close link between them, that can be generalized in the challenging capsule at the end of this entry.

Continuing our conversation about the philosophicality of science, we are now entering the peculiar era of post-Aristotelian science, which can be identified as the non-philosophical age of Greece. Here, following in the wake of Alexander’s Hellenization of the world, the pure scientist-genius comes forward immensely proud of his “science,” while haughtily dismissive both of its philosophical underpinnings, and sometimes even of all practical applications of it, especially those of his own, as was the case with Archimedes. Bertrand Russell in his History of Western Philosophy: The Hellenistic World names four such Greek geniuses: “Euclid, Aristarchus, Archimedes and Apollonius [as] content to be mathematicians, while in philosophy they did not aspire to originality.” (Take notice of the words “did not aspire,” which I’ve underlined. Russell fails here to capitalize on the subtlety of his own phrase but I would go further to insist that they downplayed their philosophical originality, to the detriment of future scientists and scholars, and going even further, to the detriment of every homo sapiens. We shall return to this thought at the end of this entry.)

Among these, Euclid in particular is the epitome of a great schoolman, whose name, many would agree, is synonymous with the science of geometry, although his contribution to it mainly consists in systematizing and expounding in a scientifically articulate manner what others had already discovered in previous times. This fact, however, does not diminish his genius as the foremost teacher of geometry to many generations of students over more than two thousand years of mathematical education, a phenomenal achievement!

Although Euclid and the previously mentioned Archimedes are the best known among the four, the others are no less deserving of undying memory, but not as fortunate to get a place of comparable prominence in it. Aristarchus of Samos, in particular, was the most exciting of all astronomers of the ancient world, as he was the first one to develop the Copernican system of the Universe some 1800 years before Copernicus!

Apollonius, on the other hand, is most noteworthy for his work on conic sections, unspectacular, one may say, yet of lasting importance to the scientific discoveries of the later ages, thus all the more remarkable as we take into account this non-glamorous, but deeply charged with potentiality, aspect.

The list of these “non-philosophical” scientific geniuses of post-Aristotelian Greek thought is by no means limited to the four greats of Bertrand Russell, but what has been said already sufficiently upholds the main point, or rather the leitmotif of this concluding subsection on Genius, namely, that no great science exists without an accompanying wisdom, in other words, the question of non-philosophicality of great science is not a distinction of principle. Philosophy is always at the bottom of the scientific well, and it is only about how much credit it gets at the end, that we may be talking distinguishing pure philosophy as such from its scientific applications.

All great artists of measuring are at the same time great artists of thinking, even when they try to disparage their own philosophicality, pushing forward their scientificality, disingenuously disattached from the thinking process which had led them to their great scientific discoveries in the first place.

Furthermore, I insist that for general educational purposes, if the educators’ goal is to cultivate talent and a superior thinking capacity in the students, the philosophy of science may be even more important than the science itself. Only the future professionals in the field can benefit from the intricacies of a scientist as an artist of measuring, but all aspiring achievers in all fields of human knowledge and understanding are sure to benefit from his legacy as an artist of thinking. There is no better educational tool than the study of how great scientists think, as extracted from their scientific writings, rather than gleaned from some generalized empty declarations about the superiority of science over philosophy.

As for the actual state of philosophy of science as an academic discipline, I find it shockingly below par. In the future, I hope, it can be developed into a full-blown and meaningful branch of educational philosophy, and the time to start doing it is now. With all this talk about “civil society” these days, people need a better education in thinking, rather than any more  incitement to shocking and usually thoughtless action, proudly mislabeled as protest and opposition.