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Ptolemy’s Philosophy of Science| old_uid | 8965 |
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| title | Ptolemy’s Philosophy of Science |
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| start_date | 2010/06/22 |
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| schedule | 17h-19h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Claudius Ptolemy was not only a mathematician but also a philosopher. In the introduction to the Almagest, he presents the foundation of his philosophy of science. He appropriates Aristotle’s division of theoretical knowledge into physics, mathematics, and theology, and, when remarking on the epistemic success of each science, he makes a claim unprecedented in the history of ancient Greek philosophy. According to Ptolemy, physics and theology are conjectural and mathematics alone produces knowledge. This paper will explore Ptolemy’s definitions of the sciences in the introduction to the Almagest and analyze how and whether, in the rest of his corpus, Ptolemy portrays mathematics yielding accurate results in its own domain as well as when applied to physics. |
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| responsibles | Rebuschi |
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