ancient state funding for science

Institutionalized research center is the key. Big archives existed during many eras in various empires, but usually sparked no more than sporadic interests which often died along with the savant who found it interesting.
 
Chinese were quite advanced in the Middle Ages, but unfortunately many innovations that were so useful at industry, astronomy, navy etc. were got buried during those chaotic times, like most chapters of the Yongle Encyclopedia got lost during late Ming and late Qing periods, or got deliberately destroyed, such as the blueprints of the Ming Treasure Fleets got burned by some conservative bureaucrats during Ming Dynasty to enforce (their own kinds of) strict Confucian principles, and gunpowder weapons and researches on it were being prohibited among the Han people during the Qing Dynasty in order to eliminate every possibilities of resistance.

If more technologies were being preserved, and even stored up for further innovations by a ancient Chinese dynasty/state, which marvelously survived for 300+ years, or there would be less chaotic period, the front line of science of modern times would indeed being pushed much further.
 
Developments did happen a lot in the realms of Philosophy/Theology and Engineering. The biggest problems for the Engineering was that most of it developed on an as needed basis such as the flying buttress. So if you want to spur development there you're better of with having massive building projects. Most the development in the late medieval period/early renaissance was in regards to institutional reform which requires stability, a desire for reform, and ultimately time.
The university system did not spring up over night, it was initially seen as another guild but for scholars, it wasn't till 1233 when Parens scientiarum was issued by the Pope giving autonomy to the university of Paris that it really got underway. But for that to happen it needed enough scholars to want to form a guild, it wanted autonomy to better fulfill its needs, and it simply need to be around a while before people started to like the idea.
Granted these musings are for Europe, which I know a lot more on, and so I have little to say on Chinese or indian development. The issue with Islamic thought is still that damned sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols.
 
The issue with Islamic thought is still that damned sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols.
The death of Archimedes at the point of a Roman sword. Everyone wanted an empire but nobody wanted knowledge. Pillaging, killing, looting and burning soon put a stop to anyone's quest for just plain knowledge, unless it was to promote a better chariot.
 
I'd say - as I would with most things - that what you need to focus on is broader society. Certain things which were simply not present in "ancient times" would be crucial to this process, in my opinion.

You need a large, educated base. A single institution of learning will create monolithic dogma; a broad expanse of competing ones will allow for discussion and disagreement.

You need a sufficiently strong economy to keep these institutions founded.

You need a use for this educated class. They wouldn't just be kept there for the heck of it.

You need a tradition of tolerated dissent, which would mean that they mustn't be dependent on a power which enforces a particular worldview.

You need a number of technologies allowing objective and repeatable measurement and observation; good lenses for astronomy, good time-keeping, etc.

And then, of course, you need some sort of reason for them to start experimenting and researching. If they don't have any sort of naturalistic or mechanistic worldview, then it's going to be hard to make people think of things as explicable, repeatable events with distinct natural cause.
 
The death of Archimedes at the point of a Roman sword. Everyone wanted an empire but nobody wanted knowledge. Pillaging, killing, looting and burning soon put a stop to anyone's quest for just plain knowledge, unless it was to promote a better chariot.

And related perhaps, centuries later, 'the Republic do not need savants.'
Lavoisier was a tax guy, yeah, that justify some anger indeed, but man... :(



And also, rationalism... Personal thinking; the greco-roman world was not actually more rationalist than the supposedly so dark middle age I'd say... if you looked beyond the philosophers and thinkers, you'd see a different picture perhaps...

Being rambling again.
 
And related perhaps, centuries later, 'the Republic do not need savants.'
Lavoisier was a tax guy, yeah, that justify some anger indeed, but man... :(

Not to interrput the "Science is an angel of purity crushed mercilessly by secular power" litany, but you know that this sentence is as much historical than "eppur si muove" from Galileo?
 
Not to interrput the "Science is an angel of purity crushed mercilessly by secular power" litany, but you know that this sentence is as much historical than "eppur si muove" from Galileo?

It would not surprise me, considering the would deal, albeit I still think such a savant should have been spared.. He was a man of science and not of politics from the arguably little I know, I admit.

But anyway.
 
It would not surprise me, considering the would deal, albeit I still think such a savant should have been spared.. He was a man of science and not of politics from the arguably little I know, I admit.

Maybe. But turning his trial as a trial against Science! is a fraud.
Being a fermier general was more than being a taxman, it was about private tax raising. As long you gave a given sum to royal fiscality and without too great abuses, you could keep what remained.
The arrest wasn't even again him personally, but a collective arrest of former Fermiers Généraux.

He was put on trial and executed for having enjoyed revenues from what was percieved as one of the very symbol of inequality; as many people (scientific or not) can enjoy the benefits of an inequal system without being in politics. It may have been a too harsh condamnation, with other charges being debatles, that's a given.

But using this to support the view that "Science is the victim of empires and power that only want to plunder and pillage", is as wrong that this premise. Really frankly and with all respect given, one shouldn't support a point with apocryphal quotes.
 
I'd say - as I would with most things - that what you need to focus on is broader society. Certain things which were simply not present in "ancient times" would be crucial to this process, in my opinion.

You need a large, educated base. A single institution of learning will create monolithic dogma; a broad expanse of competing ones will allow for discussion and disagreement.

You need a sufficiently strong economy to keep these institutions founded.

You need a use for this educated class. They wouldn't just be kept there for the heck of it.

You need a tradition of tolerated dissent, which would mean that they mustn't be dependent on a power which enforces a particular worldview.

You need a number of technologies allowing objective and repeatable measurement and observation; good lenses for astronomy, good time-keeping, etc.

And then, of course, you need some sort of reason for them to start experimenting and researching. If they don't have any sort of naturalistic or mechanistic worldview, then it's going to be hard to make people think of things as explicable, repeatable events with distinct natural cause.

Most of what you said (such as for example, competing institutions: you had Rhodes, Alexandria, Pergamum, and even Seleucid institutions competing in engineering and other sciences and knowledge in some form during the period)(aside from possibly tolerated dissent) was around in some form during the Hellenistic era. It definitely needed a lot more time to develop though, which would require Rome's rise to be crushed in its infancy, or at least checked.
 
I wonder if Asoka and/or his dinasties or such one as Chola later(?) could be a good patronage source for savants, specially Mathematics...

Maybe combined with those less known non-so-theist philosophies of India that I brought in another thread, as the debated obscure and kinda Atomistic Carvaka...
 

Dirk

Banned
Everyone wanted an empire but nobody wanted knowledge. Pillaging, killing, looting and burning soon put a stop to anyone's quest for just plain knowledge, unless it was to promote a better chariot.

This is true, and there is nothing wrong with it. My immediate mental reaction to this thread was "but every state with any military action funded advances in science". Moonstruck makes a good point, but I'd like to stress that all of the advances that led to educated people, a strong economy, and refined industries came from war and the need for wealth to fund it. Only in prehistory and very early civilization can we find revolutionary inventions (such as the wheel, writing, etc.) that didn't come directly from war.
 
There's several problems. One is that 'science' wasnt invented then. In particular the scientific method wasnt. Secondly, the connexion between 'science' and 'technology' is something that isnt so obvious historically. In fact, if you had some government supporting 'knowledge', you're more likely to get philosophers on the payroll than tinkerers. Which could HINDER technological advancement instead of helping it - look at how the effective cannonization of eg Aristotle slowed science in the mediæval era.

True, the Library at Alexandria was amazing, and, true Archimedes was both a math/physics genius but also a practical engineer. But Arisotle is more typical of who'd be funded than Archimedes.

Sure, if you had a modern person sent back in time, with the scientific method and nothing else, say, it might, might work wonderfully. But without hindsight? I doubt it's at all likely.
 
True, the Library at Alexandria was amazing, and, true Archimedes was both a math/physics genius but also a practical engineer. But Arisotle is more typical of who'd be funded than Archimedes.

Eh....during the Hellenistic period I'm not so sure-engineering had very practical military purposes for the Hellenistic monarchs (and city states such as Rhodes) that made them valuable-philosophers like Aristotle on the other hand, wouldn't present much value to a hellenistic monarch compared to someone who can figure out how to build more effective siege engines for example.
 
Eh....during the Hellenistic period I'm not so sure-engineering had very practical military purposes for the Hellenistic monarchs (and city states such as Rhodes) that made them valuable-philosophers like Aristotle on the other hand, wouldn't present much value to a hellenistic monarch compared to someone who can figure out how to build more effective siege engines for example.

Well, romans got great at making forts, aqueducs, etc.. architectural engineering. Probably with greek basis.
 
I loved Sagan to, but...

I'd say - as I would with most things - that what you need to focus on is broader society. Certain things which were simply not present in "ancient times" would be crucial to this process, in my opinion.

You need a large, educated base. A single institution of learning will create monolithic dogma; a broad expanse of competing ones will allow for discussion and disagreement.

You need a sufficiently strong economy to keep these institutions founded.

You need a use for this educated class. They wouldn't just be kept there for the heck of it.

You need a tradition of tolerated dissent, which would mean that they mustn't be dependent on a power which enforces a particular worldview.

You need a number of technologies allowing objective and repeatable measurement and observation; good lenses for astronomy, good time-keeping, etc.

And then, of course, you need some sort of reason for them to start experimenting and researching. If they don't have any sort of naturalistic or mechanistic worldview, then it's going to be hard to make people think of things as explicable, repeatable events with distinct natural cause.

There are limits to all of these in the Hellenistic world, at least compared to the Europe of the 1500's forward. And in addition, neither the Hellenistic period nor the earlier classical period in Greece is quite as unfettered as it is sometimes portrayed. There are large limits to dissent due to what was an extremely stratified social structure. An economic system based on a huge amount of chattel slavery and a lot of peasants also limits things as well. And all of this is in comparison to, say, Northern Europe in 1550, not today.
 
There are limits to all of these in the Hellenistic world, at least compared to the Europe of the 1500's forward. And in addition, neither the Hellenistic period nor the earlier classical period in Greece is quite as unfettered as it is sometimes portrayed. There are large limits to dissent due to what was an extremely stratified social structure. An economic system based on a huge amount of chattel slavery and a lot of peasants also limits things as well. And all of this is in comparison to, say, Northern Europe in 1550, not today.

And my point was earlier that there was surely a lot of superstitions and ignorance in the commoners and the elite, that the this age of thinkers was see with roses glasses with the Renaissances and beyond, even nowaday. That the middle ages where not necessarly that darker on this aspect.

I would be surprised if the ideas of Witches was a middle age creation, that the idea of witchcraft - the scaremongering and all, evil curses etc, didn't exist before christinisation.
Look at traditional african societies, where alas accusations of witchcraft still exist... :(
 
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