archemedes survives

that civilization would be way ahead of where it is currently at if there was not so much anti-intellectualism

Which anti-intellectualism in Antiquity are we talking about?
It's not because scholarship didn't focused on "hard sciences" and that human sciences were more considered, that "civilization" (there I suppose you meant "Western Civilization" rather than an overgeneralizing term on what's a civilization) was backwards then.
Any culture (historically, or geographically defined) have its own idea of what matters most on it. The technological focus is a quite recent feature, and such highlighting didn't really existed in Ancient Times.
 

norse

Banned
Which anti-intellectualism in Antiquity are we talking about?
It's not because scholarship didn't focused on "hard sciences" and that human sciences were more considered, that "civilization" (there I suppose you meant "Western Civilization" rather than an overgeneralizing term on what's a civilization) was backwards then.
Any culture (historically, or geographically defined) have its own idea of what matters most on it. The technological focus is a quite recent feature, and such highlighting didn't really existed in Ancient Times.

nevermind

as long as you are not opposed to philosophy for no reasonable cause then there is nothing to worry about
 
as long as you are not opposed to philosophy for no reasonable cause then there is nothing to worry about

It's making even less sense, I'm afraid.
I fail to see how an "opposition to philosophy" (from who? Philosophy was probably the master science of Antiquity and Middle Ages) would led to worry about somthing then.
Could you develop the points you're making a bit, in order to allow us understanding them?
 

norse

Banned
and yes there was some opposition to intellectualism at least in rome

see cato the elder if you need proof
 
and yes there were fully organized academies in the antiquties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy
Plato's Academy is exactly what I was pointing out : a scholar surrounded by disciples, not following a precise cursus.
Academia was a place belonging to Plato, where his friends gathered to discuss about politics, philosophical and ethical matters, and trying to live up to their morals.

If something , it was more close of a "philosophical communauty", with people part of it didn't lived together. I stress the part where people belonging to this communauty were intimate, defeating the purpose of an organized open institution.

After that, the following academies were essentially devoted to transmiting platonician tought rather than a general teaching.

there was a lot to gain from academies
Probably but it simply wasn't a thing then, and organizing scholarship was quite foreign to the ancient mentality, which knew a more individual and unformal approach.

The closest thing that existed then from an organized university/academy in the modern meaning of the world was Alexandria's Library, and it was far more concieved as a public place where scholars could meet instead of their private estates.

The point wasn't to create an institution, but rather to gather all the existing schools at one point, for prestige purpose from a hand (as in, making Alexandria an intellectual center by salarying scholars), and better and mainained relations between different schools and scholars and create a synergy between them without trying to merge them or have an active collaboration or a systematic teaching.

(Something more along a laboratory where human sciences had equal wheight to theoritical and physical sciences).

see cato the elder if you need proof
I did. Cato didn't professed anti-intellectualism, but conservative and practical intellectualism.
For instance, his works about fields's work, Italian History, Strategy, Moral, etc.

It can only hardly being considered as an anti-intellectualism, only if you consider human sciences as being such (and therefore, considering much of Hellenic culture as anti-intellectual).
 
Formal academies didn't existed in Antiquity.

Errr...what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyceum_(Classical)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaeum

That said, there's two important things here norse is forgetting:

Archimedes was 75-he's not establishing an academy when he has only a few years left to live.


The Romans didn't have much interest in engineering, at least not yet-the Hellenistic Greeks on the other hand did. Marcellus may have been an anomally as far as contemporary Romans go in actually giving some thought that Archimedes could be useful-but the senate shouldn't care much about him.

The Hellenistic Greeks on the other hand, did.
 

norse

Banned
I did. Cato didn't professed anti-intellectualism, but conservative and practical intellectualism.
For instance, his works about fields's work, Italian History, Strategy, Moral, etc.

It can only hardly being considered as an anti-intellectualism, only if you consider human sciences as being such (and therefore, considering much of Hellenic culture as anti-intellectual).

pratical in this sense is constrained and relative

cato seems in favor of cultural ignorance much like a lot of america

In the year 155 BC, when he was fifty-eight years old, he was chosen with Diogenes the Stoic and Critolaus the Peripatetic to go as ambassador to Rome to deprecate the fine of 500 talents which had been imposed on the Athenians for the destruction of Oropus. During his stay at Rome, he attracted great notice from his eloquent speeches on philosophical subjects, and it was here that, in the presence of Cato the Elder, he delivered his several orations on Justice. The first oration was in commendation of the virtue of Roman justice, and the next day the second was delivered, in which all the arguments he'd made on the first were refuted, as he persuasively attempted to prove that justice was inevitably problematic, and not a given when it came to virtue, but merely a compact device deemed necessary for the maintenance of a well ordered society. Recognizing the potential danger of the argument, Cato was shocked at this and he moved the Roman Senate to send the philosopher home to his school, and prevent the Roman youth from the threat of re-examining all Roman doctrines. Carneades lived twenty-seven years after this at Athens
 

Did you read these articles?
Again, these weren't even as close from formal academies, and more of philosophical communauties with no systematical or standardized teaching, and certainly not open to strangers but at the contrary reserved to more or less intimate friends; maybe in the line of ancient training grounds for some, but essentially made around ONE figure.

It was nowhere close to an academic in the modern meaning of the word.

See my previous post.
 

norse

Banned
Errr...what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyceum_(Classical)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaeum

That said, there's two important things here norse is forgetting:

Archimedes was 75-he's not establishing an academy when he has only a few years left to live.


The Romans didn't have much interest in engineering, at least not yet-the Hellenistic Greeks on the other hand did. Marcellus may have been an anomally as far as contemporary Romans go in actually giving some thought that Archimedes could be useful-but the senate shouldn't care much about him.

The Hellenistic Greeks on the other hand, did.

first off there were centarians in the classical age

there were also more than a few who lived to 80 or even 90 years old

second it would not really take that much work for him to establish a academy. all he needs is some land and a few students. even if he dies after a few years without teaching his students much the fact that the academy exists would mean that it might survive much like the platonic academy did after the death of plato
 
Which anti-intellectualism in Antiquity are we talking about?
It's not because scholarship didn't focused on "hard sciences" and that human sciences were more considered, that "civilization" (there I suppose you meant "Western Civilization" rather than an overgeneralizing term on what's a civilization) was backwards then.
Any culture (historically, or geographically defined) have its own idea of what matters most on it. The technological focus is a quite recent feature, and such highlighting didn't really existed in Ancient Times.

Well it was certainly true on the part of the Romans. The Romans, at least until the mid-late republic (i.e. after they already conquered or more or less put in their place every hellenistic power) didn't care much for the mini-scientific revolution going on in the Hellenistic world (I use the term scientific revolution very, very, loosely). So it is largely due to the Romans that the advancements made in the Hellenistic age were smothered and cut off short before they could bloom into something more substantial. Seeing the difference between "scientists" of the imperial era such as Ptolemy and even Galen, compared to those of the Hellenistic era such as Archimedes, Philo, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, Euclid, Herophilus, Erasistratus, etc. and it is astounding how much scientific understanding had declined in the interim.
 

norse

Banned
Did you read these articles?
Again, these weren't even as close from formal academies, and more of philosophical communauties with no systematical or standardized teaching, and certainly not open to strangers but at the contrary reserved to more or less intimate friends; maybe in the line of ancient training grounds for some, but essentially made around ONE figure.

It was nowhere close to an academic in the modern meaning of the word.

well plato is not neccessarily the most noble of philosophers

he seems to have corrupted some of what was said about the life of socrates and he seems to have often denegrated the works of other philosophers in the greek world

seems he was more concerned about politiking in the philosophical world of ancient greece than actual philosophy
 
]Well it was certainly true on the part of the Romans. The Romans, at least until the mid-late republic (i.e. after they already conquered or more or less put in their place every hellenistic power) didn't care much for the mini-scientific revolution going on in the Hellenistic world (I use the term scientific revolution very, very, loosely).
If I may, I'm under the impression that you read Lucio Rosso's book about Hellenistic "scientific revolution" there, critically the "decline" part. While most of its other statements were well considered, it's really pointed out that is belief in a earlier "Dark Age" of science is issued from a large bias and huge speculation.

Better using it really loosely the term (even if it does have a point), as even Hellenistic scholars didn't really understood the range of what they were working on. At least for a good part of it, their experiments were mainly an application of their theories rather than objective of their own (and the lack of economical or technological impetus didn't helped as well).

Saying that Romans didn't much cared for it, on the other hand, is brand exaggeration. Especially engineering was based on geometrical and physical theories made by hellenistic scholars, and if it denoted a very pragmatical approach (that defined a good part of Roman culture) it doesn't really show a total desintirest of theoritical sciences.

That the hellenistic corpus was preserved by Byzantines, but also partially in western world, points that it was considered valuable.
 

norse

Banned
Now you are just starting to sound ridiculous.

i fail to see why i am being rediculous when both rome and america seem to often favor rule of law over ethical and moral debating

not black and white but often america has tried to keep the populace ignorant and the rule of law overpowering

the 1950s are a prime example of this
 

norse

Banned
Gremlin from the Kremlin

why did you put something like this up before i ever could

i came across that some years ago while watching the russian vicotry day parading

i think the exact quote was

'the gremlin strikes 10"
 
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