
Knowledge, Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing
Cambridge University Press
Published on 19. April 2017
Book
Hardback
294 pages
978-1-107-16943-2 (ISBN)
Description
The relationship between theory and practice, in other words between norms indicated in a text and their extra-textual application, is one of the most fascinating issues in the history and theory of science. Yet this aspect has often been taken for granted and never explored in depth. The essays contained in this volume provide a complex and nuanced discussion of this relationship as it emerges in ancient Greek and Roman culture in a number of fields, such as agriculture, architecture, the art of love, astronomy, ethics, mechanics, medicine, pharmacology. The main focus is on the textuality of processes of the transmission of knowledge and its application in various fields. Given that a text always contains complex and destabilising aspects that cannot be reduced to the specific subject matter it discusses, to what extent can and do ancient texts support extra-textual applicability?
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
3 Halftones, black and white; 9 Line drawings, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
544 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-107-16943-2 (9781107169432)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Marco Formisano | Philip van der Eijk
Knowledge, Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing
Book
08/2021
Cambridge University Press
€49.10
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Marco Formisano
Knowledge, Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing
E-Book
04/2017
Cambridge University Press
€26.99
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Marco Formisano | Philip van der Eijk
Knowledge, Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing
E-Book
04/2017
Cambridge University Press
€93.49
Available for download
Persons
Marco Formisano is Professor of Latin Literature at Universiteit Gent, Belgium. He has published extensively on ancient technical and scientific writing. His first monograph, Tecnica e scrittura (2001), was dedicated to late Latin scientific texts. He has studied the ancient art of war as a literary genre and its tradition (Vegezio: Arte della guerra romana, 2003 and War in Words: Transformations of War from Antiquity to Clausewitz, coedited with H. Boehme, 2012) as well as Vitruvius (Vitruvius in the Round, co-edited with S. Cuomo, special issue of Arethusa, 2016). He is the editor of The Library of the Other Antiquity, a series devoted to late antique literature. Philip van der Eijk is Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Classics and History of Science at the Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin. He has published on ancient medicine, philosophy and science, comparative literature and patristics. He is the author of Aristoteles: De insomniis, De divinatione per somnum (1994), Diocles of Carystus (2000-1), Philoponus on Aristotle on the Soul 1 (2005-6), Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity (2005); and Nemesius: On the Nature of Man (with R. W. Sharples, 2008). He has edited Ancient Histories of Medicine (1999) and Hippocrates in Context (2005), and co-edited Ancient Medicine in its Socio-Cultural Context (with H. F. J. Horstmanshoff and P. H. Schrijvers, 1995).
Editor
Universiteit Gent, Belgium
Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
Content
1. From words to acts? Philip van der Eijk and Marco Formisano; 2. The poetics of knowledge Marco Formisano; 3. Machines on paper: from words to acts in ancient mechanics Markus Asper; 4. Si quis voluerit: Vitruvius on architecture as 'the art of the possible' Elisa Romano; 5. Caesar's Rhine bridge and its feasibility in Giovanni Giocondo's Expositio pontis Ronny Kaiser; 6. From words to acts: on the applicability of Hippocratic therapy Pilar Perez Canizares; 7. Naso magister erat - sed cui bono? On not taking the poet's teaching seriously Alison Sharrock; 8. From techne to kakotechnia: use and abuse of ancient cosmetic texts Laurence Totelin; 9. From discourses to handbook: the Encheiridion of Epictetus as a practical guide to life Gerard Boter; 10. The problem of practical applicability in Ptolemy's Geography Klaus Geus; 11. Living according to the seasons - the power of parapegmata Gerd Grasshoff; 12. Auctoritas in the garden: Columella's poetic strategy in De re rustica 10 Christiane Reitz; 13. The generous text: animal intuition, human knowledge, and written transmission in Pliny's books on medicine Brooke Holmes; 14. From descriptions to acts: the paradoxical animals of the ancients from a cognitive perspective Pietro Li Causi.