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Article ID: CBB001220734

Zur Rolle der antiken Astrologie in der Vorbereitung einer säkularen Naturwissenschaft und Medizin (2011)

Sudhoffs Archiv: Zeitschrift fuer Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 95
Pages: 158--169
Publication date: 2011
Language: German

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Science and religion Natural laws Astronomy Secularization Ancient Middle and Near East Persia (Iran)

The Persian period in the Near East (from c. 500 BCE) represented the first example of globalisation, during which advanced cultural centres from Egypt to Afghanistan were united under a single rule and common language. Paul Unschuld has drawn attention to a scientific revolution in the late first millennium BC, extending from Greece to China, from Thales to Confucius, which saw natural law replace the divine law in scientific thinking. This paper argues for new advances in astronomy as the specific motor which motivated changes in scientific thinking and influenced other branches of science, including medicine, just as the new science of astrology, which replaced divination, fundamentally changed the nature of medical prognoses. The secularisation of science was not universally accepted among ancient scholars, and the irony is that somewhat similar reservations accompanied the reception of modern quantum physics.

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Description Argues that advances in astronomy promoted a shift from divine law to natural law in the Persian period after 500 BCE.

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