Is Science Western in Origin Preview - CK Raju

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Preview page 12 of 16then existed in Byzantium, it could easily have been sourcedfrom there, for Byzantium was then an abject tributary ofBaghdad.…Euclid: Geometry and MathematicsWe saw that even Needham thought that real mathematicsand science began with deduction, a tradition supposedlystarted by Euclid.But what exactly do we know about Euclid? One authority,the late David Fowler, gave a succinct answer: “Nothing”. 20However, other historians insist that the right answer is“almost nothing”. Let us decide between these twopossibilities!Euclid supposedly wrote a key geometry text called theElements. Naturally, people suppose (on the strength of thestory) that the name “Euclid” is found in front ofmanuscripts of the Elements. But that is not true.…At about this point, many people jump up to say that theydon’t really care about the person Euclid, and it is the bookcalled the Elements which ultimately matters. This is a facileescape route.If Euclid is a concoction, the Elements might have had a non-Hellenic origin in the mystery geometry of pre-AlexandrianEgypt. In that case, it could be better understood as contraryto post-Crusade Christian rational theology. The sameconclusion applies even if we accept seriously the
Neoplatonic philosophy of geometry, as articulated by Platoor by Proclus in his Commentary on the Elements. So,accepting Euclid as a concoction also entails a differentunderstanding of the Elements, and amounts to denying theappropriation of reason by the church. 25 Such a denial wouldalter the present-day philosophy of mathematics, 26 and theidea of deduction as fundamental to science.Preview page 13 of 16
Page 2 and 3: Preview page 2 of 16…Foreword to
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Page 10 and 11: Preview page 10 of 16This system is
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