Beyond Modern Science I: Basic Terms of Ancient Scholarly Knowledge and Practices

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Beyond Modern Science I: Basic Terms of Ancient Scholarly Knowledge and Practices

Veranstalter
Prof. Dr. Annette Imhausen (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt); Prof. Dr. Tanja Pommerening (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Veranstaltungsort
Erbacher Hof, Mainz
Ort
Mainz
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
09.01.2020 - 11.01.2020
Deadline
15.12.2019
Website
https://www.aegyptologie.uni-mainz.de/beyond-modern-science-basic-terms/
Von
Nadine Gräßler

Until today, the historiography of sciences of Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East focuses primarily on astronomy, mathematics and medicine as scientific disciplines. These choices were based on a modern view of the concept and categories of science developed by historians of science in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, more recent researchers of the pre-Greek history of science have established that the concepts and categories of scholarship within individual disciplines are specific to individual cultures and change over time.

As a consequence it is necessary to establish categories and concepts of science in Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East using a culture-specific perspective. Our conference focuses on concepts and contexts of epistemological terms used in Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern texts. In addition the Egyptian and Mesopotamian scholarly terminology will be compared with that of Greek, Latin, Chinese and Sanskrit texts. The individual lectures will examine the lexical and semantic field of terms connected with knowledge and practices of scholars in theses cultures.

The aim of the conference is to exceed the defined semantics of the individual lexical terms and to determine previously disregarded scholarly disciplines by rejecting a pre-classification, that was based on modern scientific disciplines.

Programm

Thursday, January 9, 2020

9:00-9:30 Welcome
9:30-10:30 Prof. Dr. Tanja Pommerening & Prof. Dr. Annette Imhausen: Introduction
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break

Section I: Ancient Egypt

11:00-11:45 Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Hoffmann (München): rḫ and ḫm – “to know” and “not to know”. But what does this mean?
12:00-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:15 Prof. Dr. Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert (Leipzig): Cognitive verbs and their distribution in ancient Egyptian scientific texts
14:20-15:05 Dr. Nadine Gräßler (Mainz): ‘Creative speech’ and ‘knowledge in the heart’ – The terms ḥw and sj3 in ancient Egyptian texts
15:05-15:30 Coffee Break
15:30-16:15 Dr. Stefan Baumann (Trier): From Artistry to Erudition. The meaning of the verb ḥmw in Egyptian

Section II: India

16:20-17:05 Prof. Dr. Kim Plofker (New York): Śastra and jyotiḥśāstra: the ‘science of light’ in Sanskrit learning
17:10-17:55 Dr. Agathe Keller (Paris): ‘Showing a connexion’, some reflexions on the use of yukti by Śaṅkara Vāriyar (fl. 1540) in relation to other attested use of this term in medical and philosophical texts in Sanskrit

Friday, January 10, 2020

Section III: Mesopotamia

9:00-9:45 Prof. Dr. Jim Ritter (Paris): nēpešu and the heart of Mesopotamian rational practices
9:50-10:35 rof. Dr. Guido Pfeifer & Steffen Jauß, M. A. (Frankfurt): tba (dīnu)
10:35-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-11:45 Dr. Ulrike Steinert (Mainz): nēmequ & co: Akkadian terms for wisdom and knowledge
11:45-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:15 Prof. Dr. Nils Heeßel (Marburg): General terms to express knowledge in the Ancient Near East
14:20-15:05 Dr. Daliah Bawanypeck (Frankfurt): ‘Sign’ and ‘(its) interpretation’ - the Akkadian terms ittu and pišru in scholarly texts from Mesopotamia
15:05-15:30 Coffee Break
15:30-16:15 Prof. Dr. Mathieu Ossendrijver (FU Berlin): Seeing, watching, measuring: observational terms in Mesopotamian scholarship

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Section IV: Ancient Greece and Rome

9:00-9:45 Dr. Chiara Ferella (Mainz): The Notion of Sophia beyond Philosophy
9:50-10:35 Prof. Dr. Jochen Althoff (Mainz): ἐπιστήμη (episteme)
10:35-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-11:45 PD Dr. Annemarie Ambühl (Mainz): The Art of Science? Origins and usages of the terms ars and scientia in Latin technical texts
11:45-13:30 Lunch

Section V: China

13:30-14:15 Prof. Dr. Ole Döring (FU Berlin): How gewu zhizhi / 格物致知 means „Wissenschaft“? A tri-lingual hermeneutic approach to translation of basic concepts of philosophy
14:15-15:30 Final discussion and Round Table for Publication
15:30-16:00 Coffee

Kontakt

Nadine Gräßler

Institut für Altertumswissenschaften, Ägyptologie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099 Mainz

graessle@uni-mainz.de

https://www.aegyptologie.uni-mainz.de/beyond-modern-science-basic-terms/