Abstract
Francesca Rochberg has frequently written about ancient Near Eastern culture and its relation to what is nowadays called “science,” e.g., in her book The Heavenly Writing (Cambridge 2004). The present work broadens her explorations of the philosophical implications of “history of science.”
She refers by “the cuneiform world” to the “corpus of the Babylonian and Assyrian literati, the scholarly specialists in bodies of knowledge relating to the phenomena” (p. 1). In this world, no concept of “nature,” as in Western culture, existed, and there was no word for it. Since science is frequently seen as presupposing a nature which it is trying to explain, the question of whether the Mesopotamian corpus of knowledge can be considered science has to be addressed, beginning in Chapter 1.
Chapter 2, entitled “Old Ideas about Myth and Science,” examines H. Frankfort et al.’s The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East (Chicago 1946) in its own historical context. It can today be seen as inadequate in explaining those ways of thought, mainly because it neglected the vast corpus of the Mesopotamian scribes’ engagement with physical phenomena and relied only on mythological texts. The contrast between “mythopoeic thought” and “science” is expression of the worldview of the authors rather than a heuristic tool. The idea of “nature” in The Intellectual Adventure was not useful, Rochberg concludes, for an historical analysis. A new historiography will aim to integrate cuneiform texts into the history of science.
Chapter 3 begins with Akkadian terms for “knowledge” and what they may mean exactly in relation to the different corpora of texts maintained by the scribes. Most important was the knowledge of omens. Rochberg describes various types of omens and their development, with special attention to those derived from the heavens. This particular knowledge then led to what we call astronomical texts, i.e. those dealing with observation and prediction of phenomena in the sky. These texts influenced the later history of astronomy outside of Mesopotamia.
Chapter 4 concerns the understanding of norms and ideals and of deviations from them, embedded in the various forms of divination. A central concept is the “sign”; observed phenomena were seen as signs and had to be interpreted by means of textual compendia which were the tools of divinatory science. Signs are seen as communications from the gods, as warnings of impending danger. The indicated dangers were not unavoidable fate; they could be averted by the so-called namburbi rituals.
Celestial signs were well suited to find norms, times, and distances that could be considered “normal.” Conversely, deviations from such norms could be identified. In general, “normal” signs were positive omens, deviating one’s negative. Such considerations of normality and order were used also in the interpretation of other signs. Rochberg stresses, however, that “the desire to come to an understanding of the order of things in the cuneiform texts” must not be seen as a desire to classify nature (p. 126).
Chapter 5 deals with “the Babylonians and the Rational.” After reviewing several attempts by modern historians to deny a “scientific spirit” to Babylonian divination, Rochberg shows that deductive reasoning is present in omens, so rationality, as commonly understood, is also. No development from less rational early forms of divination to later, more rational forms can be found. The way in which correlations and connections between phenomena are established in Mesopotamian divination can best be called analogical reasoning. Analogies in omens could be derived from speech or writing or from the shape of objects mentioned in the texts. They were not intended to find physical (or other) causes for the phenomena. The same reasoning can be seen in what we call Babylonian magic.
Chapter 6 concerns the role of causality in the cuneiform world, especially, in the understanding of omens. The structure “If P then Q” shows that a phenomenon P leads one to expect the phenomenon Q. But what is the relation between these two? As stated before, analogies of all kinds are used by the cuneiform scribes to describe these relations. Importantly, P is not necessarily followed by Q. Divination is a way of communication with the gods; by letting P happen, they send a message to humans that Q will happen – unless something changes the intention of the gods, like a namburbi or other ritual. Divine will is the ultimate cause of all phenomena. No “laws” using physical causality are therefore of interest to the cuneiform scholars. But the metaphor of “law” is widely used in the cuneiform sources and is discussed in detail in the rest of this chapter.
Chapter 7 presents the observation of astral phenomena in cuneiform texts, i.e. mainly the reports by scholars to Assyrian kings in the seventh century and the Astronomical Diaries from Babylonia.
Chapter 8 discusses “prediction and explanation in cuneiform scholarship.” Both astronomical tables and (celestial) omens are predictive. The predictions in omens are stated in the present or future form of a verb: “something will happen.” Since it is possible to undo a negative prediction by magical means, some scholars have proposed to understand the predictions as modal: something may (or may not) happen. Rochberg rather wants to translate “something will happen (unless it is undone).” Explanation in Babylonian divination is not using causal connections or laws of nature but philological techniques and interpretation of cuneiform signs. Explanation of mathematical astronomical tables takes the form of procedure texts.
It is impossible within a brief review to do justice to the well-informed presentation of Mesopotamian scholarship and the wide-ranging philosophical considerations of Francesca Rochberg. Her book can be highly recommended.