Knowledge, Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing
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Knowledge, Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing
About this book
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?
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Half title
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: From Words to Acts?
- 2 Introduction: The Poetics of Knowledge
- 3 Machines on Paper: From Words to Acts in Ancient Mechanics
- 4 Si qui voluerit: Vitruvius on Architecture as `the Art of the Possible'
- 5 Caesar's Rhine Bridge and Its Feasibility in Giovanni Giocondo's Expositio pontis (1513)
- 6 From Words to Acts? On the Applicability of Hippocratic Therapy
- 7 Naso magister erat - sed cui bono? On Not Taking the Poet's Teaching Seriously
- 8 From techne to kakotechnia: Use and Abuse of Ancient Cosmetic Texts
- 9 From Discourses to Handbook: The Encheiridion of Epictetus as a Practical Guide to Life
- 10 The Problem of Practical Applicability in Ptolemy's Geography
- 11 Living According to the Seasons: The Power of parapegmata
- 12 Auctoritas in the Garden: Columella's Poetic Strategy in De re rustica 10
- 13 The Generous Text: Animal Intuition, Human Knowledge and Written Transmission in Pliny's Books on Medicine
- 14 From Descriptions to Acts: The Paradoxical Animals of the Ancients from a Cognitive Perspective
- Index Locorum
- General Index