Böcker av G. E. R. (University of Cambridge) Lloyd

Western philosophy and science are responsible for constructing some powerful tools of investigation, aiming at discovering the truth, delivering robust explanations, verifying conjectures, showing that inferences are sound and demonstrating results conclusively. By contrast reasoning that depends on analogies has often been viewed with suspicion. Professor Lloyd first explores the origins of those Western ideals, criticises some of their excesses and redresses the balance in favour of looser, admittedly non-demonstrative analogical reasoning. For this he takes examples both from ancient Greek and Chinese thought and from the materials of recent ethnography to show how different ancient and modern cultures have developed different styles of reasoning. He also develops two original but controversial ideas, that of semantic stretch (to cast doubt on the literal/metaphorical dichotomy) and the multidimensionality of reality (to bypass the realism versus relativism and nature versus nurture controversies).

Long before science as we know it existed, sophisticated studies of the physical world were undertaken-in Mesopotamia, India, China, and Greece. G. E. R. Lloyd explores the methods, subject-matter, and aims of those studies. He illuminates the origins of human intellectual inquiry, finding similarities and differences across cultures.

G. E. R. Lloyd explores the amazing diversity of views that humans have held on being, humanity, and understanding. In a cross-cultural study that ranges from ancient to modern times, he asks how far we are bound by the conceptual systems to which we belong, and explores topics such as ontology, morality, philosophy of language, and communication.

This book challenges widespread views concerning Aristotle's methods and practices of scientific and philosophical research. It explores generally unrecognised tensions between Aristotle's deeply held a priori convictions and his remarkable honesty in responding to perceived anomalies or exceptions in the data.

Did science and philosophy develop differently in ancient Greece and ancient China? If so, can we say why? This book offers answers to these questions with a series of detailed studies of cosmology, natural philosophy, mathematics and medicine, and by relating the science produced in each ancient civilisation to the values of the society in question.

This 2002 book explores the origins of systematic inquiry into science, historiography, and language in ancient Greece, Mesopotamia and China. It investigates how and why research developed differently in these societies and illustrates the tensions that existed between state control and individual innovation and the different ways those tensions were resolved.