03826nam 22006735 450 991015428900332120230124193919.00-226-40627-X10.7208/9780226406275(CKB)3710000000971586(MiAaPQ)EBC4519341(StDuBDS)EDZ0001615189(DE-B1597)522655(OCoLC)967882697(DE-B1597)9780226406275(EXLCZ)99371000000097158620200424h20172016 fg engurcnu||||||||rdacontentrdamediardacarrierBefore Nature Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science /Francesca RochbergChicago : University of Chicago Press, [2017]©20161 online resource (380 pages) illustrations, mapsPreviously issued in print: 2017.0-226-40613-X Includes bibliographical references and index.Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. The Ancient Near East, Science, and Nature -- Part I. Historiography -- Part II. Cuneiform Knowledge and Its Interpretive Framework -- Part III. Rationality, Analogy, and Law -- Part IV. The Cuneiform World of Observation, Prediction, and Explanation -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- IndexIn the modern West, we take for granted that what we call the "natural world" confronts us all and always has-but Before Nature explores that almost unimaginable time when there was no such conception of "nature"-no word, reference, or sense for it. Before the concept of nature formed over the long history of European philosophy and science, our ancestors in ancient Assyria and Babylonia developed an inquiry into the world in a way that is kindred to our modern science. With Before Nature, Francesca Rochberg explores that Assyro-Babylonian knowledge tradition and shows how it relates to the entire history of science. From a modern, Western perspective, a world not conceived somehow within the framework of physical nature is difficult-if not impossible-to imagine. Yet, as Rochberg lays out, ancient investigations of regularity and irregularity, norms and anomalies clearly established an axis of knowledge between the knower and an intelligible, ordered world. Rochberg is the first scholar to make a case for how exactly we can understand cuneiform knowledge, observation, prediction, and explanation in relation to science-without recourse to later ideas of nature. Systematically examining the whole of Mesopotamian science with a distinctive historical and methodological approach, Before Nature will open up surprising new pathways for studying the history of science.Assyro-Babylonian literatureHistory and criticismScienceAssyriaPhilosophy of natureAssyriaLearning and scholarshipAssyriaAstronomy, Assyro-BabylonianBabylonian.astrology.astronomy.cuneiform.divination.knowledge.nature.science.scientific imagination.scientific models.Assyro-Babylonian literatureHistory and criticism.SciencePhilosophy of natureLearning and scholarshipAstronomy, Assyro-Babylonian.509.35Rochberg Francesca, authttp://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut647286DE-B1597DE-B1597BOOK9910154289003321Before Nature1934343UNINA