Physics of the Stoics

by Shmuel Sambursky

Stoic physics, based entirely on the continuum concept, is one of the great original contributions in the history of physical systems. Building on The Physical World of the Greeks, the author describes the main aspects of the Stoic continuum theory, traces its origins back to pre-Stoic science and philosophy, and shows the attempts of the Stoics to work out a coherent system of thought that would explain the essential phenomena of the physical world by a few basic assumptions. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Genres: Philosophy

153 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

SAMBURSKY, SHMUEL (1900–1990), Israeli scientist and historian. Born in Koenigsberg, Germany, Sambursky studied physics before going to Palestine in 1924. Four years later he joined the physics department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His sense of history and his humor made him a particularly successful lecturer. In 1945, in order to harness the country's scientific potential to the development of Palestine, the Mandatory government set up the Board of Scientific and Industrial Research, with Sambursky as its executive secretary. This board was the forerunner of the Research Council of Israel established in 1949, with Sambursky as its architect and first director (1949–56). He remained vice chairman when, in 1957, he returned to full-time academic life as dean of the Hebrew University's faculty of science. In 1959 he became professor of the history and philosophy of science in a new department he helped to create. Sambursky was active in UNESCO, serving for some years as vice chairman of Israel's national committee for the organization. In 1968 he received the Israel Prize for Humanities.

His works include Ha-Kosmos shel ha-Yevanim (1954; The Physical World of the Greeks, 1956); Physics of the Stoics (1959); and Physical World of Late Antiquity (1962). A revised edition of these three works appeared in 1965 in one volume under the title Das Physikalische Weltbild der Antike. His brother was the composer Daniel *Sambursky.

Reviews

[Kirsten Mortensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned about this book via a wikipedia footnote. I hunted down a copy (I think it's out of print?) because the protagonist of one of the novels I'm writing is a stoic, in the formal sense, and as I read about stoicism (sticking to translations of ancient texts, since my protag isn't a herd guy; he consults the originals, not the burgeoning stack of stoic pop-lit) I became curious about what the ancient Greek stoics meant when they talked about "nature."

Example, from Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations." "Don't ever forget these things: The nature of the world. My nature. How I relate to the world. What proportion of it I make up. That you are a part of nature, and no one can prevent you from speaking and acting in harmony with it, always."

What, I wondered, would Aurelius have meant when he thought about "nature"?

"Physics of the Stoics" helped me get a bit closer to imagining an answer (whether it's the right answer or not, who knows. hahahaha.)

For the ancient Stoics, reality was permeated by pneuma, which they in some cases defined (as translated) as a substance consisting of "air" and "fire."

What I try to do as I consider these concepts, however, is to achieve a kind of mental elasticity.

As a modern human, I was taught that pre-modern scientific models were nonsense. The world is made of whirling electrons, not a mix of air, fire, water, and earth.

But perhaps that dismissal is a bit too pat and a bit too arrogant.

Full disclosure: Per the review I wrote a few minutes ago of Bernardo Kastrup's "Meaning in Absurdity," I'm a philosophical idealist. Ergo I believe that reality is actually consciousness, not matter.

Therefore, I believe that the models we use to examine reality and explain it phenomenologically are just that: models. Insofar as they seem real, it's because we are interacting with reality and our interaction collapses possibility into the seemingly-objective.

So in considering how the ancient Greeks understood the world, perhaps their model was as valid as anything we've dreamed up.

I mean "valid" quite literally. In "Meaning," Kastrup discusses the work of Thomas Kuhn, a 20th century philosopher of science, who proposed that objective data "cannot be gathered and interpreted outside the context of a paradigm," defined by Kastrup as the "basic assumptions, values, and beliefs held by scientists about how nature is put together." Continues Kastrup, "we cannot know for certain that the laws of physics are the same throughout space and across time...paradigms change over time, and along with them what science considers to be true or reasonable." Kastrup is careful to add a strong caveat that this is not an argument for relativism. But for the purposes of my Ancient Stoics thought experiment, insofar as they developed a model that made complete sense and actually explained the world, absolutely it was "valid."

So, to play along: pretend you were never taught anything about modern physics, but understood the world strictly on the basis of your own senses and mind.

Air is, essentially, nothingness: it's undetectable by our senses. Yes, we can detect its *movement* but not air per se.

Warm air is nothingness with a quality associated with life (warmth) (movement is another quality that is associated with life, and fire is both warm and in constant motion).

So why not propose a model of reality where everything is permeated by "air" (a nothingness that is also a something); and where "nothingness" merges with other qualities to generate phenomena such as objects and living beings?

In addition to qualities like warmth and movement, other subjective qualities such as rationality are also self-evidently aspects of that nothingness; after all, they have to arise from something, right?

That is pneuma. It is cohesive; it is everywhere; it must be what holds everything together. It is the "field" from which everything else arises. It's the logos of the Gospel of John: there from the beginning, that through which all things are made: the light of man, the Christ consciousness.

To be clear, I'm not rejecting modern physics. That would be stupid; it's very useful and I am eternally grateful to have been born today instead of 2500 years ago. But as a way of penetrating the nature of reality by seeing it through fresh eyes? This book was a lot of fun :)

[Mug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik had het niveau van dit boek licht onderschat

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Therefore the cosmos is alive and rational...