Worldmaking and Cuneiform Antiquity: An Anthropology of Science
Author(s): Francesca Rochberg (Author)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: January 9, 2025
Language: English
Print length: 278 pages
ISBN-10: 1009522337
ISBN-13: 9781009522335
Book Description
Objects of knowledge exist within material, immaterial, and conceptual worlds. Once the world is conceived from the perspective of others, the physical ontology of modern science no longer functions as a standard by which to understand other orderings of reality, whether from ethnographical or historical sources. Because premodern and non-western sources attest to a plurality of sciences practiced in accordance with different ways of worldmaking from that of the modern West, their study belongs to the history of science, the philosophy of science, and the sociology of science, as well as the anthropology of science. In Worldmaking and Cuneiform Antiquity, Francesca Rochberg extends an anthropology of science to the historical world of cuneiform texts of ancient Babylonia. Exploring how Babylonian science has been understood, she proposes a new direction for scholarship by recognizing the world of ancient science, not as a less developed form of modern science, but as legitimate and real in its own right.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘This is a brilliant work on an important topic, which brings Mesopotamia firmly into the realm of history of science. Rochberg has managed to assimilate all of the key thinkers and studies in the history of epistemology and science and to integrate these theories into her discourse, culminating in completely original and innovative insights into ancient science.’ Mark Geller, University College London
‘Rochberg’s book is a timely, original work that significantly advances a line of analysis concerning Mesopotamian celestial science that she has been developing for much of her career as a leading historian of the ancient world.’Alan C. Alan C. Bowen, Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science
Book Description
Features an exposition of ancient cuneiform science from the perspective of worldmaking and the cultural anthropology of science.
About the Author
Francesca Rochberg is Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. A John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow and John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2008. Rochberg is the author of The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (2008) and Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science (2022).
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