The History of Science in Asia and Europe
IIAS seminars and masterclass
Leiden, the Netherlands
18 May - 2 June 2006
‘Science’ is often described or imagined as ‘Western’, having originated in ancient Greece with the Arabs acting as translators. It is a prejudice of long standing and derives from an outdated picture of the history of science. The history of pre-modern – ancient and medieval – science can only be adequately understood if the Eurasian continent is treated as an undivided unit.
In May and June 2006, IIAS is organizing a series of four academic events on European and Asian intellectual history, across borders and sciences. The series starts with a seminar on the generosity of artificial languages used by people to understand the world. Whereas this seminar takes a broad humanities and natural sciences perspective, the second seminar on empires and exact sciences in pre-modern Eurasia focuses on the encounter and impact of ‘foreign’ science for ancient and medieval natural sciences. A lecture by Prof. Christopher Minkowski, who specializes in the cultural and intellectual context of early modern Indian astronomy, will bridge the second seminar and the masterclass on comparative intellectual histories of early modern Asia. This masterclass will be given by prof. Sheldon Pollock.
18-20 May 2006 » Seminar
The Generosity of Artificial Languages in an Asian Perspective
Convenors: Prof. Frits Staal, Prof. Wim Stokhof (IIAS), Dr Martin Stokhof and Prof. Johan van Benthem, and Prof. Robbert Dijkgraaf
This is the second in a series of workshops on Asian contributions to the formation of modern science and will address questions that are more conceptual in nature but that are studied in the same scientific and historical context. One of these questions is alluded to by Galileo’s often quoted statement that the universe is a book written in the language of mathematics. What Galileo had in mind was not language, but the geometrical tradition of Plato and Euclid that was also adopted by Newton. The mathematization of modern science refers to something else: artificial languages. To many of these applies what d’Alembert, the leading French mathematician of the mid-eighteenth century, wrote: “Algebra is generous; she often gives more than is asked of her.” Can such questions be answered in the light of the findings of our first workshop, that artificial languages are not confined to Europe but occur in Asia where they are used not only in mathematics (as both China and India illustrate) but also in linguistics (as established in India)? Are these mysteries that depend on wider conceptual issues such as Platonism (which is also Vedantic) or Nominalism (which is also Buddhist)? We hope to shed light on these problems not by speculation, but by taking account of information that is presently available.
29-30 May 2006 » Seminar
Empires and Exact Sciences in Pre-modern Eurasia
Convenors: Dr Kim Plofker (IIAS) and Prof. Jan Hogendijk (Utrecht University)
Historians of science devote great attention to the imposition and reception of modern scientific theories in colonial societies. Typical themes include the ways science was used rhetorically and politically to maintain the superiority of the colonizers, and strategies of rejection and appropriation by the colonized. Important as they are, these topics can give the misleading impression that encounters with alien science were strictly a phenomenon of modern global imperialism. In fact, political expansion and exposure to new cultures have been reflected in changing scientific traditions since antiquity, including the spread of Graeco-Roman dominance into the Near East and North Africa, and the subsequent merging of many former territories of the Roman Empire, along with parts of Iranian, Indian, and Chinese cultures, into the growing realm of Islam. This seminar will address the explicit recognition and assimilation (or modification) of ‘foreign' elements in the exact sciences, changes within existing scientific traditions in imitation of foreign texts and practices.
29 May 2006 » Lecture
by Prof. Christopher Minkowski (University of Oxford, UK)
The Exact Sciences in Early Modern India: Can the History of Science be Comparative?
Christopher Minkowski, University of Oxford
The most salient feature of the history of the exact scientists who wrote in Sanskrit in the early modern period is the story of their contact with ‘strangers’ who wrote scientific works in Arabic and Persian, and with those who wrote in European languages. At the same time, the history of the exact sciences in Sanskrit in this period shares features with the history of the other knowledge systems communicated in Sanskrit, although the latter did not undergo a comparable encounter with ‘foreign’ alternatives. The exact sciences in Sanskrit are therefore meaningfully included in an Indian intellectual history of this period, but have their own peculiarities. The nature of these peculiarities raises questions about what sort of history it may be possible to write for the early modern Indian sciences, and questions about the privileged status of the history of science itself. Are histories of scientific contact in South Asia rendered meaningful by insertion in a disciplinary history or in a Eurasian history? Is there something exceptional about the history of science when it comes to writing connected histories or global histories? For that matter, can the history of science be comparative?
30 May - 2 June 2006 » Masterclass
Comparative Intellectual Histories of Early Modern Asia
Convenor: Prof. Sheldon Pollock (Columbia University, New York)
Invited speakers: Prof. Michael Cook, Prof. Benjamin Elman, Prof. Quentin Skinner
How to understand the logic of an intellectual order founded upon ideologies of continuity and preservation, rather than ideologies of improvement and obsolescence?
A comparative intellectual history of the early modern world (1500-1800) can address this question more effectively and develop a more heuristically powerful theory than can any one scholarly tradition investigated in isolation. The masterclass will bring together experts in Sinology, Indology and Middle Eastern studies to consider shared issues not only in the historiography of early modern knowledge, but also in the theoretical challenges we must confront in writing the intellectual history of the non-West, where even the terms ‘intellectual’ and ‘history’ do not escape scrutiny.
Practical information
For more detailed information on each event and registration, please contact
International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS)
P.O.Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
the Netherlands
t +31 (0)71 527 2227
f +31 (0)71 527 4162