Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science

In 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.

Author: Francesca Rochberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 08/07/2020
Pages: 392
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.22lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.85d
ISBN13: 9780226759586
ISBN10: 022675958X
BISAC Categories:
- Science | History
- History | Civilization
- History | Ancient | General

About the Author
Francesca Rochberg is professor of Near Eastern studies at the University of California, Berkeley.