3 The wider semantic field of ‘science’ in the classical languages

§1 The insight that words are not atom-like entities that bear meaning by and in themselves without relation to others, but that they ought rather to be likened to Leibnizian monads that mirror all other monads in a large network, was first developed by Jost Trier. The German scholars Jost Trier and Walter Porzig address semantic fields as Sinnbezirke, Wortfelder, or Bedeutungsfelder and point out that semantics must take into account the structure of language. Indeed, there is usually semantic anisomorphism between languages, as few (if any) words cover exactly the same semantic ground in any two languages. A prime example of this are colour words, which cover a physically ‘objective’ radiation spectrum very differently in different languages. Such (admittedly not always so easily definable) ‘denotational fields’ are divided differently in different languages. There is no need to enter here into the (difficult) theoretical discussions about how exactly such fields should be conceived of and how they can be precisely defined; instead, semantic fields will be employed in this chapter simply to study terms for activities similar to those we call scientific today, and their names in Greek and Latin. The present chapter will thus take a look at the most important related terms in the ancient languages; chapter 5 will then seek to visualise a web of meaning between them.

We have seen that awareness of a concept 'science' was still in a nascent phase in the time of Plato and Aristotleindeed, it was strongly shaped by the latterand such a concept was not yet clearly fixed to any single Greek word. Taking a look at the usage of other terms for the scientific acquisition of knowledge at that time will thus be rewarding. In many cases, this vocabulary was later taken over by Latin one-to-one. Latin used a kind of interpretatio romana not only for Greek divinities 2 but also for philosophical and scientific terminology. Even in the first century BC or earlier, Classical Antiquity often fixed the translations of these and thus etymologically mean something like 'to distinguish', 7 while sapio primarily meant 'to taste'. Cognosco stems from the same Indo-European root for 'to know' (*ǵenh 3 ) as γιγνώσκω, with a preverb con-. For all these verbs it is possible to form nominal abstract terms: ἐπιστήμη, εἴδησις and ἱστορία, γνῶσις; similarly in Latin: scientia, sapientia, cognitio and (rare) gnaritas. 8 The nuances, however, differ to some extent: sapientia usually translates σοφία (which lacks a corresponding primary verb in Greek), while γνῶσις has a tendency toward mystical knowledge, which cognitio lacks. This latter word stays close to the general meaning of scientia, mainly adding to it an inchoative character, thus tending toward 'getting to know, realising, becoming acquainted, cognisance'.
It has been shown that a concept of 'science' is only emerging in Greek Antiquity, but even for Hellenistic times D'Ooge can still claim (1926: 16) that τέχνη, πραγματεία, 9 μέθοδος, and ἐπιστήμη 'were used in about the same sense, as "a system or body of rules and principles" of any art'. Among the Latin termsespecially scientia, ars, disciplina, doctrinaa similar situation can be observed (e. g. Teeuwen 2003: 358-360). At a closer look, however, differences do appear, although the usage can vary between authors, schools, and periods; for instance, τέχνη is used by the Hippocratic authors in the way Aristotle would use ἐπιστήμη. Some such near-synonyms will be discussed in more detail in what follows. The closest semantic field consists of terms that can denote scientific activity or the acquisition of scientific knowledge, besides the pair ἐπιστήμη-scientia, which was considered above.
μάθημα, μάθησιςdisciplina §3 The rather broad Latin term disciplina 10 ('branch of learning; instruction; (military) discipline') often corresponds to what we would call 'science' in Latin Antiquity. Etymologically, it corresponds best to μάθημα (often plural), as it was felt to belong to disco (cf. the Isidore quotation at the end of this section). Μάθημα is an-other word apparently not found in Ionic but frequent in Attic, 11 whereas the more active, subjective form of acquiring 'learning' is called μάθησις, also in Ionic authors. As the object of learning, μάθημα can correspond to Latin disciplina or doctrina (on which see §8). However, in Latin disciplina often designates the various fields of scientiae and artes, while μάθημα develops from 'learning' in general more and more toward mathematical learning. The Pythagorean Archytas (d. ca. 350 BC) already used it to denote something like 'exact, mathematical science' (D14 LM = B1 DK): καλῶς μοι δοκοῦντι τοὶ περὶ τὰ μαθήματα διαγνῶναι καὶ οὐθὲν ἄτοπον ὀρθῶς αὐτοὺς οἷά ἐντι, περὶ ἑκάστου θεωρεῖν. περὶ γὰρ τᾶς τῶν ὅλων φύσιος καλῶς διαγνόντες ἔμελλον καὶ περὶ τῶν κατὰ μέρος, οἷά ἐντι, ὄψεσθαι. περί τε δὴ τᾶς τῶν ἄστρων ταχυτᾶτος καὶ ἐπιτολᾶν καὶ δυσίων παρέδωκαν ἁμῖν διάγνωσιν καὶ περὶ γαμετρίας καὶ ἀριθμῶν καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα περὶ μωσικᾶς. ταῦτα γὰρ τὰ μαθήματα δοκοῦντι ἦμεν ἀδελφέα. 'It seems to me that those studying the μαθήματα discern well, and it is by no means strange that they are able to think correctly about each thing. For as they discerned the nature of everything well, they will also understand how its parts are. They handed down to us clear insight about the speed of the heavenly bodies and their rising and setting, equally about geometry, numbers, and not least about music. For these μαθήματα seem to be siblings of one another.' So the mathematical sciences that will become the quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music) are here already seen in close kinship and called τὰ μαθήματα. In Aristotle μαθήματα is exclusively used for mathematical learning, alongside μαθηματική (sc. ἐπιστήμη, as in Hero [?], Definitiones 138.4, ed. Heiberg, p. 162). This 'mathematics' usually also contains the other mathematical disciplines such as optics, acoustics, statics, and astronomy (and with it astrology). Aulus Gellius writes that (Noctes atticae I.9.6, ed. Marache, vol. 1, p. 39) geometriam, gnomonicam, musicam ceterasque item disciplinas altiores μαθήματα veteres Graeci appellabant. 'the older Greeks called geometry, the art of making sundials, music, and the other similar higher disciplines μαθήματα'.
The Greek word is also used in Latin (incidentally hinting that disciplina was not felt to be close enough to convey the meaning of μαθήματα) for 'mathematics'. An exception is found again in Aulus Gellius (XIV.3.5-6, vol. 3, p. 134), who indeed translated μαθήματα with mere disciplinae.
From Roman times onward, mathematica can as totum pro parte also denote 'astrology', for example in Suetonius. 12 In legal terminology, this meaning can still be found in the Codex Iustinianus in a decree of the year 294: 13 Artem geometriae discere atque exerceri publice intersit. Ars autem mathematica damnabilis interdicta est. 'To teach or to practise the art of geometria is to be of public interest. The damnable "mathematical" art, however, is forbidden.' Later, a poem by Bernardus Silvestris (fl. 1147) asserting freedom from astrological fatalism is called Mathematicus. 14 Hugh of St Victor even uses mathematica in the sense of 'magic arts' in general (besides using the same word for the quadrivium in its entirety): 15 Mathematica dividitur in tres species: in aruspicinam, in augurium, in horoscopicam. 'Mathematica is divided into three species: inspection of victims, augury, horoscope casting.' The more usual, narrow, use of the term as we find it today in English is defined by Johann Christoph Heilbronner (1706-1747) in his Historia matheseos (p. 1) thus: 16 Mathesis est scientia, omnia, quae numero gaudentur, dimetiendi. 'Mathesis is the science of measuring everything that admits of number.' In this narrow sense of 'mathematics', we see that the Greek term has not found a translation in Latin or the modern vernaculars but is used tel quel, both as mathematica and mathesis. Most modern European vernaculars use the Greek word when they speak of 'mathematics'. Exceptions are Dutch wiskunde (literally 'study of knowing') and Icelandic staerðfraeði (literally 'study of quantity'), which use typically Germanic compounds. As has already been mentioned, the word disciplina has a broad spectrum of meaning; it can also translate παιδεία 17 or be synonymous with eruditio. 18 The loanword 'discipline' is still used today in rather different meanings: from παιδεία to 'branch of a science'. In Antiquity disciplina often means '(one specific branch of) science', and indeed not only or not even usually only the mathematical sciences. 19 In fact, the word can translate ἐπιστήμη, especially in Platonic contexts. 20 Calcidius 21 translates ἐπιστήμη once as scientia and once as disciplina in his translation of the Timaeus; on the other hand, he also once translates μάθημα as scientia. As Lewis & Short (s. v.) put it, disciplina can be 'all that is taught in the way of instruction, whether with reference to single circumstances of life, or to science, art, morals, politics, etc.'. Teachability and a systematic nature are thus central for disciplina; so, Cicero's contemporary Aulus Caecina Severus spoke in his (lost) work on divination of the etrusca disciplina. His aim will have been to reconcile Etruscan lore with the Stoic 'scientific' worldview that was current at the time. 22 Vitruvius (I.1.12) speaks of the unity of all disciplinae (quoted in chap. 4 §5 below).
In Latin Antiquity, philosophia itself is also a disciplina, indeed the 'royal' one (disciplina regalis) for Apuleius (Florida 7, ed. Vallette, p. 134); or, conversely, all branches of science and learning can be disciplinae of philosophia. 23 Indeed, Apuleius seems to use ars, disciplina, and doctrina as synonyms (Bovey 2003: 73), as does Augustine (with the addition of scientia; 76). Bovey comes to the conclusion that these Latin words started out more or less synonymous and it was only in Late Antiquity that some writers tried to distinguish nuances in them. Given their mostly obvious link to existing Greek terminology, this looks like an oversimplification, at least where authors aware of these Greek nuances are concerned. Nonetheless, it seems that in Latin Antiquity scientia and disciplina can both be used to denote 'science', often being more or less synonymous, with the difference that scientia also has the wider meaning of 'knowledge' (as seen in chap. 2 §5 above) and disciplina a connotation of various branches of learning. Isidore (Etymologiae I. precepts and rules. Others say that it is derived from the Greek word ἀρετή, that is, from the "virtue" called certain knowledge [scientia]. Between ars and disciplina Plato and Aristotle would posit the distinction that ars is about things that can also be different, but disciplina is about things that cannot turn out differently. So, when something is studied using true arguments it will be a disciplina, when it is treated in a manner [only] resembling truth and open to opinion, it will have the name ars.' Thus, Isidore (or his source) is clearly taking disciplina to be the Roman translation of ἐπιστήμη in this quotation and scientia as a synonym for it. This approach is common; the medical writer Ps-Soranus (Late Antiquity), for instance, writes similarly (Quaestiones medicinales, ed. Fischer, p. 33): Quid est disciplina? disciplina est scientia immutabilis cum ratione. 'What is disciplina? Disciplina is immutable knowledge based on reason.' As mentioned above, only in the twelfth century is scientia finally preferred (over disciplina) as the standard Latin term for 'science'. This will be pursued below (chap. 10 §6).
τέχνηars §4 The pair of terms τέχνη and ars correspond much more closely to one another than μάθημα and disciplina. According to TLL (s. v.), ars was a vox rara apud priscos, dein per totam viguit latinitatem. notionem primitivam in prosam induxere Sall. Liv. Tac. potissimum. 'rare word among the old writers; thereafter it becomes common throughout all of Latinity. Its basic notion was mostly introduced to prose writing by Sallust, Livy, Tacitus.' Among the old writers who do use the word quite often is Plautus, where it tends to mean a 'gute od. schlechte Eigenschaft, Gewohnheit, Handlungsweise, Tugend od. Untugend, Laster' ('good or bad quality, habit, conduct, virtue or lack thereof, vice'; Georges, s. v. ars), 25 a usage that led later authors to an etymologia from ἀρετή = virtus. 26 From the Auctor ad Herennium and Cicero onward, the word is usually very similar in meaning to τέχνη. Our 'art' is, of course, derived from ars, but both the Greek and the Latin words had no connotation of virtuosity, unlike the English 'art' or German Kunst. 27 Generally, τέχνη/ars is understood as a more practical, and ἐπιστήμη/scientia as a more theoretical 'science', but this was not the case from the beginning. The word τέχνη 28 is related to τέκτων ('carpenter; craftsman') in general, but also τίκτω ('bring into the world, engender', esp. children) and to Sanskrit √takṣ ('fashion, form, invent'); 29 these words have a definite practical connotation in common. The basic meaning of τέχνη is 'art, skill, cunning of hand'. 30 Nonetheless, the Hippocratic writers use τέχνη for their medical 'art', although they certainly mean to emphasise its factual and often theoretical, thus scientific character. In Gorgias (465a) Plato distinguishes τέχνη ('art, craft') from ἐμπειρία ('practice, craft without understanding'; as Plato says, οὐκ ἔχει λόγον οὐδένα, 'it has no rational understanding')a distinction that often recurs in later writers. Already in Plato, τέχνη can also denote a technical treatise (e. g. Phaedrus 271c). For Aristotle, τέχνη and ἐπιστήμη are often synonymous (e. g. Metaphysica Α1, 981a2), 33 but in some passages he stresses that the former is more practical, as in Metaphysica Λ9, 1075a1-3, where the τέχναι are defined as ποιητικαί. Aristotle provides a more detailed differentiation of ἐπιστήμη and τέχνη in Ethica Nicomachea (VI.3-4, 1139b15-1140a23): ἔστω δὴ οἷς ἀληθεύει ἡ ψυχὴ τῷ καταφάναι ἢ ἀποφάναι, πέντε τὸν ἀριθμόν· ταῦτα δ' ἐστὶ τέχνη, ἐπιστήμη, φρόνησις, σοφία, νοῦς· ὑπολήψει γὰρ καὶ δόξῃ ἐνδέχεται διαψεύδεσθαι.
'There will be five means by which the soul can possess truth by affirming or denying; they are practical art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophical wisdom, intuitive intellect; for suspicion and opinion can also be wrong.
[…] Therefore, the scientifically knowable is of necessity. Thus also eternal; for all things that are of necessity in an unqualified way are eternal. Eternal things are uncreated and imperishable. Again, every science is thought to be teachable, and the scientifically knowable learnable. All teaching comes from what is previously known, […] art, therefore, as has been said, is a productive state with true reasoning, lack of art contrariwise is a productive state with false reasoning about matters that can also be different.' Several characteristics of science (ἐπιστήμη) are named here that we would still agree with today: it is teachable, it seeks certainty, and it takes what is already known as its point of departure. On the other hand, the objects of τέχνη are things to be made or constructed; τέχνη is the means to rationally make or produce them, so approaching our 'technology'. Thus, with Aristotle the distinction between scientia and ars that was to become standard in Greek and in Latin is reached. For him, something may happen naturally, by chance, or by art. 34 The artist (artifex) usually strives to produce a work (ἔργον, opus), again like our 'technology' and unlike our 'science'. This connotation continues into early modern times: a healthy patient in the ars medica, the 'stone' in the ars alchemica, or a 'work' may be a piece of artit would seem that our modern concept of art is derived from this emphasis on the 'work'. This connotation is absent from scientia, whose aim is pure knowledge for its own sake. But ars is not the blind fashioning of a work; it proceeds with λόγος (Aristotle, De partibus animalium I.1.16, 640a31-32): Ἡ δὲ τέχνη λόγος τοῦ ἔργου ὁ ἄνευ τῆς ὕλης ἐστίν. 'But art is a conception [λόγος] of the work before it is put into matter.' In the wake of Aristotle, Lausberg (1990: 26) can present the following definition: 34 Lausberg: 'Ein geordneter, auf Vollkommenheit zielender Vorgang kann von Natur aus (φύσει = naturā) vor sich gehen, also dem natürlichen Geschehensablauf entsprechen (z. B. das Wachsen eines Baumes). Entspricht er nicht dem natürlichen Geschehensablauf, so kann er durch Zufall (τύχῃ = casu) oder durch eine von einem vernünftigen Wesen (Mensch) planvoll ins Werk gesetzte Handlung (τέχνῃ = arte) zustandekommen' ('An orderly process aiming at perfection can happen by nature (φύσει = naturā); thus, it can correspond to the natural course of events (e. g. the growing of a tree). If it does not correspond to the natural course of events, it can come about by chance (τύχῃ = casu) or by an action planned by a reasonable being (man) (τέχνῃ = arte)'; 1990: 25).

μτέχνηars
Demnach ist eine ars (τέχνη) ein System aus der Erfahrung (ἐμπειρία) gewonnener, aber nachträglich logisch durchdachter, lehrhafter Regeln zur richtigen Durchführung einer auf Vollkommenheit zielenden, beliebig wiederholbaren Handlung, die nicht zum naturnotwendigen Geschehensablauf gehört und nicht dem Zufall überlassen werden soll. 'Thus, an ars (τέχνη) is a system of instructive rules, derived from experience (ἐμπειρία) but subsequently logically elaborated for the correct execution of an action aiming at perfection and repeatable at will, one that does not belong to the natural course of events and that should not be left to chance.' Later on, however, and possibly as a consequence of Aristotle's usage, the word τέχνη/ars often also implies a craft of a practical, economically interesting kind, as can for instance be seen in the later Roman Empire in Philostratus (after AD 217), where the philosopher and sage Apollonius of Tyana, while arguing before Domitian's court in his defence against the charge of wizardry, stresses that his art does not earn him money (Vita Apollonii VIII.7, ed. Mumprecht, pp. 862-864): τέχναι ὁπόσαι κατ' ἀνθρώπους εἰσί, πράττουσι μὲν ἄλλο ἄλλη, πᾶσαι δ' ὑπὲρ χρημάτων, αἱ μὲν σμικρῶν, αἱ δ' αὖ μεγάλων, αἱ δ' ἀφ' ὧν θρέψονται, καὶ οὐχ αἱ βάναυσοι μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τεχνῶν σοφαί τε ὁμοίως καὶ ὑπόσοφοι πλὴν ἀληθοῦς φιλοσοφίας. 'All the arts that can be found among men somehow or other producing something do it for moneysome for little, some for much, some offer a livelihood, not only the manual ones but also the erudite and nearly erudite ones [ὑπόσοφος] of the other artsexcept true philosophy.' 35 In order to de-emphasise this mercantile aspect, the term 'Liberal Arts' (ἐλευθέριοι τέχναι, artes liberales) came into use. 36 Such Liberal Arts are often opposed to artes mechanicae (for practical, mechanical crafts involving the earning of money). The difference between scientia and ars seems to get further weakened in Late Antiquity. 37 In the Middle Ages these liberal, disinterested, arts become nearly synonymous with scientia/disciplina, especially for the mathematical artes 35 The sentence is complicated; the word ὑπόσοφος is a hapax. The distinction is between handicrafts on the one hand and the Liberal Arts on the other. Of the latter the text mentions later poetry, music, astronomy, the arts of sophists and rhetors, whereas the ὑπόσοφοι τέχναι include practical but not 'vile' occupations, such as painting, sculpture, navigation, agriculture. liberales (quadrivium), which have never been concerned with an opus. In general, the relationship between ars and scientia continues to vary between authors, but on the whole ars remains the more practical and thus less esteemed endeavour, one that may lead the way for practical concerns, 38 while scientia remains more based on θεωρία/contemplatio, disinterested study. Some later attempts at definition will now be examined. The late antique grammarian Audax writes with the grammatical art in mind (Excerpta de Scauro et Palladio, ed. Keil, vol. 7, p. 320): Ars quid est? Rei cuiusque scientia ad utilitatem delectationemque tendentis usu uel ratione comprehensa.
'What is art? The acquisition of certain knowledge about something which has aims of usefulness and enjoyment, a practical and a rational aspect being included.' A probably somewhat later grammar, the Victorini sive Palaemonis ars (ed. Keil, vol. 6, p. 187), understands ars in a wider context: for this author, ars involves activities purely of the mind (roughly 'sciences'), purely of the body ('gymnastics'), or of both ('applied sciences'): Our conclusions about the relationship between scientia and ars are explicitly voiced in a later mediaeval author, a Ps-Bede whose floruit is unclear, commenting on the Ethica Nicomachea passage quoted above. Unfortunately, many of the spurious works of Bede have hardly been studied, and it is often impossible even This distinction between ἐπιστήμη and τέχνη is already translated more loosely, but tellingly, by Vitruvius, 42 where the former corresponds to ratiocinatio and the latter to opus, in other words again respectively to theoretical understanding and to practical science producing a 'work'. There are also other nuances of difference: thus, according to Menuet-Guilbaud (1994: 84) for Cicero arsamong other meaningsmeans a 'science particulière' ('particular science'), whereas disciplina means the 'contenu d'un enseignement, matière enseignée' ('the content of teaching, taught subject-matter'). The latter is the more specialised term for Cicero (88).
What is common to all of these ways of understanding τέχνη/ars is the practical character of producing a work, except for the Liberal Arts. The terms can be seen as another ancestor of our 'science': in the Middle Ages, artes (liberales) are often close to our 'science', but in the Scientific Revolution (see chap. 13 below) of early modern times, which emphasises the importance of empiricism and experimentingthings that would traditionally be at best marginal for scientia but pertain to the more intellectual artesthe differences are further blurred. Only in post-Latin times have the terms 'science' and 'art' parted ways quite neatly.
In part 2 of this book, it will become clear that in Roman and early mediaeval times 'science' was largely seen as part of the general, higher education of free men, not specialist work, so the sciences are often called artes liberales, but also litterae or more clearly disciplinae litterarum. These 'letters' already contained more than literature for Cicero, who uses combinations such as litterarum scientia, litterarum cognitio, or nescire litteras (meaning 'to be without a liberal educa- tion' and contrasting with scire litteras). 43 Cicero's terms studium litterarum and scientia litterarum remain common throughout the Middle Ages.
ἱστορίαhistoria §5 This is a typically Ionian term (in the form ἱστορίη) and thus contrasts with the Attic ἐπιστήμη. As mentioned above, it derives from the root of οἶδα (ϝιδ), which is the same root present in German wissen ('to know') and Latin video ('to see'). A nomen agentis ἵστωρ exists already in Homer in the juridical context of '(eye-)witness'. From this a verb ἱστορέω, first and profusely attested in Herodotus, is formed, originally as 'to be an eye-witness'; 44 ἱστορία is thus the researching of an event through eye-witnesses. The word was also used in some contexts by Aristotle (some twenty-eight times), especially for mostly descriptive scientific activities, for which he often uses ἱστορία, 45 most prominently in the title of his Historia animalium. The interpretatio romana will find no suitable Roman word to translate this Ionian concept (just as English has not), and merely transliterates it as historia. 46 There was a similarly formed word in Latin, speculatio, also from a verb meaning 'to spot' or 'to see' like οἶδα, but this word had already become the usual Latin term for θεωρία. Apparently, the word ἱστορίη could in early times stand for 'science' in general. We read in Iamblichus (De vita Pythagorica 18.89, ed. Klein, p. 52): ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ ἡ γεωμετρία πρὸς Πυθαγόρου ἱστορία. 'Geometry was called ἱστορίη by Pythagoras.' But usually, ἱστορία/historia hasin contrast to the other words for 'science'a tendency to imply a kind of knowledge of 'historical' facts, that is, an emphasis on their temporal development and, often, their uniqueness: it tends to describe them more than to explain them from first principles. 47 Both these points separate  Floyd (1990). 46 In contrast, German has its own term Geschichte, an abstract to geschehen meaning literally 'what has been happening'. Clearly, the term approaches 'history' from a rather different angle, that of res gestae. See Grimm (s. v. 'Geschichte', 3b). The irregular feminine gender (nouns with the collectivising prefix Ge-in German are otherwise neuter) is occasionally already attested in Luther; it may well be influenced by the gender of Latin historia. 47 Schütze (2000: 25-26) differentiates four meanings of historiain rough paraphrase: mere description (as opposed to demonstration), a notitia particularis (as opposed to a theoria generalis), ἱστορίαhistoria such knowledge from ἐπιστήμη, which is of general things that always (or 'for the most part', as Aristotle cautiously tends to add) hold true. 48 In general, however, both historia and scientia can be seen as typical, roughly contemporary discoveries of the Greeks, both meaning to get as much and as certain knowledge about something as possible. 49 If the difference between them is only that historia does not use first principles and can apply to specific cases, a wider usage of this term than our 'history' naturally follows. The topics can be any singular, non-deducible cases, such as animals in Aristotle's Historia animalium, or even nature as a whole, as for Pliny's Naturalis historia. Occasionally, Aristotle uses the adverb ἱστορικῶς, denoting something like 'scientifically'. 50  Thus, historia treats singular cases, whereas ars/disciplina/scientia is general and rule-based; the ars alluded to here is, of course, ars grammatica. In early modern times, the difference between apodictic Aristotelian knowledge as scientia and more descriptive knowledge as historia will continue to be felt: botany and zoology will still be seen as 'natural history', in German as Naturkunde, 52 although they dethe recounting of deeds (narratio rei gestae), and observation of facts. He follows Goclenius, Lexicon philosophicum (Francofurti, 1613), p. 626. 48 Aristotle also points out that the καθόλου is missing in ἱστόρια. Poetica 9, 1451b5-7, ed. Tarán & Gutas, p. 179: Διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ᾿ ἱστορία τὰ καθ᾿ ἕκαστον λέγει ('This is why poetics is more philosophical and serious than history. Poetics relates more the general, history the specific'). 49 e. g. von Fritz (1967: 5), who emphasises the critical approach in both. See also von Fritz (1952). See chap. 24 below on whether 'science' is a Greek invention. 50 De generatione animalium III.8 (757b35). LSJ translate the adjective as 'exact, precise, scientific'. 51 Thus, Varro would say that in the strife between sound-law Neogrammarians and their opponents with the slogan 'chaque mot a son histoire' ('each word has its own history') both approaches are valid depending on the word. But it seems that Varro (and other premodern authors) rather underestimated the complexity of the rules involved. 52 Kunde from Old High German kundeo ('witness') denotes a rather wider form of 'testified' knowledge than Wissenschaft.
velop as sciences in the modern sense of the word. The Scientific Revolution, however, will mix these two categories again by taking into account observations of unique events ('idiographic science'), 53 from which a science may progress from description to finding underlying patterns and thus become explanatory, as, for instance, happened to botany and zoology withat the latestthe advent of evolution theory and twentieth-century genetics. In Latin the word historia soon also acquires a broader meaning of any 'account, narrative, tale' (whence the English word 'story'). 54 The word finally ends up as 'history' in English, again getting closer to Herodotus, who, however, used only one specific nuance of the word, that of the ἱστορία of peoples.
Further complicating things, some later authors see historia (in this narrow sense of 'historiography') itself as approaching an ars, as does for instance Hugh of St Victor in the twelfth century. 55 Other writers seem to sense a personal, so to speak 'subjective', component (its topic being within us, not in 'external' nature), for instance the fifteenth-century theologian Lambertus de Monte, Expositio De anima (Cologne, 1498), fol. 4ra: Notandum, quod Aristoteles vocat hanc scientiam de anima 'historiam' […] quia sicut in historiis traduntur aliqua quae in nobis experimur, ita scientia de anima est de his quae in nobis ita esse naturaliter experiuntur. 'It is to be noted that Aristotle [in 402a4] calls this science of the soul historia […] because as in history books things that we experience within us are handed down, so the science of the soul concerns itself with such matters that are naturally experienced within us.' Historiography was thus often seen as merely rhetorical, literary, or didactic in nature and had no fixed place among the mediaeval sciences. 56 It had its distinctive stylistic ideals, and an oratorial style was expected to be used in writing historiography. 57 But in early modern times, there was a renewed discussion about whether history can be an ars or even a scientia. One of the authors writing about this topic was Gerardus Johannes Vossius (1577-1649), Ars historica 2-4, pp. 5-14, opting for the former:
[…] It is not a science, as its aim and its object indicate. For historiography is learned in order that we may compose history books; but a science does not strive after a work, it is for acquiring knowledge only.' 58 Other authors, such as Sebastiano Maccio (De historia, Venetiis, 1613, chap. 10; quoted disapprovingly by Vossius, Ars historica 4, p. 17) had indeed gone further in demanding the status of a scientia for historia. It has been argued that historiography becomes a scientific discipline only in nineteenth-century German Historismus, 59 when textual criticism and source criticism were methodologically applied in order to pinpoint historical 'laws'. Others are of the view that it has never become a scientific field at all. But some writers of Antiquity and the Middle Ages were well aware that scientific principles could be applied even to matters that happen only once and belong to historiography in the modern sense, with the aim of reaching the best possible understanding of what happened. More ambitious authors in the antique tradition of great historians, from Hecataeus (fl. 500 BC) and Herodotus (ca. 484-ca. 425) to Thucydides (ca. 460-ca. 400) and Polybius (ca. 200-ca. 118) or Titus Livius (64/59 BC-AD 17) and Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 56-after 117) didoften successfullylook for deeper reasons behind historical developments, and they did think critically and understood motivating forces behind events, all of which led to a deeper understanding of historical events. How good, scientific historiography is to be done is already pointed out in detail by Lucian (Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 47-48, ed. MacLeod, vol. 3, p. 314): 60 Τὰ δὲ πράγματα αὐτὰ οὐχ ὡς ἔτυχε συνακτέον, ἀλλὰ φιλοπόνως καὶ ταλαιπώρως πολλάκις περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν ἀνακρίναντα, καὶ μάλιστα μὲν παρόντα καὶ ἐφορῶντα, εἰ δὲ μή, τοῖς ἀδεκαστότερον ἐξηγουμένοις προσέχοντα καὶ οὓς εἰκάσειεν ἄν τις ἥκιστα πρὸς χάριν ἢ ἀπέχθειαν ἀφαιρήσειν ἢ προσθήσειν τοῖς γεγονόσιν. κἀνταῦθα ἤδη καὶ στοχαστικός τις καὶ συνθετικὸς τοῦ πιθανωτέρου ἔστω. καὶ ἐπειδὰν ἀθροίσῃ ἅπαντα ἢ τὰ πλεῖστα, πρῶτα μὲν ὑπόμνημά τι συνυφαινέτω αὐτῶν καὶ σῶμα ποιείτω ἀκαλλὲς ἔτι καὶ ἀδιάρθρωτον· εἶτα ἐπιθεὶς τὴν τάξιν ἐπαγέτω τὸ κάλλος καὶ χρωννύτω τῇ λέξει καὶ σχηματιζέτω καὶ ῥυθμιζέτω.
58 Vossius thus applies the standard distinction between ars and scientia. For the general (widespread) discussion on the nature of historia in early modern times, see Grafton (2007). 59 e. g. by Korenjak (2016: 199). 60 On historia as a methodological science in the Middle Ages, see Schulz (1909), who shows that all of the points mentioned by Lucian were reiterated by mediaeval historians; on historia's relation to the Liberal Arts, see Wolter (1976).
'The facts should not be assembled at random, but he [the historian] must examine them painstakingly and often in a manner full of hardship, and if possible be an eye-witness and observe. If he cannot, he should heed the more impartial witnesses and those who would least seem to leave aside or add facts out of favour or malice. Then he should be shrewd and skilful in composing a story as plausible as possible. When he has assembled all or most of the data, he should first compose notes from them and he should make a body of material as yet unadorned and without organisation. Only then, after arranging it in an orderly manner, he should adduce beauty and adorn it with phrasing and figures and rhythm.' In brief, this is what Polybius called ἀποδεικτικὴ ἱστορία 61 and can be rendered as 'scientific historiography'. The Middle Ages and early modern times also had historians who worked very much according to such principles, for instance William of Malmesbury (ca. 1095-ca. 1143), whereas other historians (e. g. Liutprand of Cremona, ca. 920-972) instead wrote propagandistic history that clearly took sides. In general, indeed, it was only in the nineteenth century that scientific rigour and clearly defined methods became standard for historiography, which was now present as a discipline at universities, but many other sciences became much more rigorous during or after the Scientific Revolution too. 62 Introductions to history's methodology often concluded that history was indeed a science. For instance, Feder (1924: 12-14) argues that historiography is a science despite Aristotle's insistence that sciences treat only 'das Allgemeine' ('the general'; 12), for it seeks a genetic and causal understanding of the past. Boyer sums the discussion up (Cursus philosophiae, Logica maior q. 4, a. 4, §1.II, vol. 1, p. 295): De alia quaestione, minoris quidem momenti, an scilicet historia sit proprie scientia, alii aliter opinantur. 'On this other question, which is of lesser moment, whether historiography is a proper science, some think this and some that.' Even though there would thus seem to exist quite strong arguments for including historiography among the sciences, it is only marginally treated in this book, as it differs conspicuously in several respects from other sciences, among them in its language, as a sample of texts below (chap. 20) will show. Indeed, as the quoted passages have suggested, even in Antiquity historiography had its own style, quite in contrast to most other scientific disciplines. In Antiquity and the Middle 61 Historiae II.37, ed. Büttner-Wobst, vol. 1, p. 169. 62 Châtelet is thus too sweeping when he states: 'L'histoire est savoir. Elle n'est savoir historiqueon veut dire par là: savoir qui a la possibilité d'apporter les preuves de sa véracitéque depuis le xix e siècle' ('History is knowledge. It is only since the nineteenth century that it has been historical knowledgeby which we mean knowledge that entails the possibility of adducing proofs of its veracity'; 1962: 15).

ἱστορίαhistoria
Ages, the connection between scientia/disciplina and historia is rarely pointed out explicitly.
φιλοσοφίαphilosophia (amor sapientiae) §6 This word describes what the φιλόσοφος ('lover of wisdom') does. It was apparently coined byaccording to non-contemporary ancient sources -Pythagoras, as a more modest term than ὁ σοφός ('the wise man'). 63 The Romans loaned the Greek word as philosophia, only rarely 64 translating it as amor sapientiae. One might be tempted to see a development from 'wise men' through philosophers to scientists, but, reality isas so oftenrather more complicated. Only some general points about the complicated epistemological question of the shifting relation between philosophy and science can be discussed here. It is clear that this relation changed over time and that there are several mutually exclusive positions. For Aristotle, φιλοσοφία and ἐπιστήμη largely overlap; indeed, Bonitz (s. v. φιλοσοφία) explains the former as investigatio; scientia, cognitio; philosophia. Aristotle distinguishes a first and a second philosophy, the former what we would call metaphysics today, the latter roughly natural science (Metaphysica Ζ11, 1037a13-20): studying things that can be perceived by the senses. In Antiquity φιλοσοφία was usually a more global concept comprising and sometimes emphasising the more 'practical' and global connotations of the philosophers' own way of being (especially among Stoics), 65 whereas ἐπιστήμη was a more exclusively theoretical endeavour divided into various disciplines. Among the Roman philosophical schools, especially the Stoics, it was customary to divide philosophy into three disciplines: physics, logic, and ethics. The first of them corresponds more or less to our natural science, but the last of them was by far the most esteemed one. 66 In Roman times, the term philosophus was often used as an honorific for 63 Diogenes Laertius, De vita philosophorum I.12, ed. Long, vol. 1, p. 5, and Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes V.3(8-9), ed. Fohlen, pp. 109-111, who translates the concept as sapientiae studiosus. See further Burkert (1960). 64 e. g. Augustine, De ordine I.32, ed. Doignon p. 156. 65 '[I]l est utile de rappeler le sens "totalitaire" de la "philosophie" chez tous les penseur païens: la philosophie est pour eux la synthèse du savoir, le système général des sciences, la sagesse intégrale vers laquelle est bandé tout l'effort de la pensée humaine' ('It is useful to recall the "totalitarian" sense of "philosophy" in all pagan thinkers: for them, philosophy is the synthesis of knowledge, the general system of sciences, the integral wisdom to which all the effort of human thought is directed'; van Steenberghen 1966: 55). 66 The three parts of philosophy, e. g. in Zeno of Citium §45, ed. von Arnim, vol. 1, p. 15 (= Diogenes Laertius, De vita philosophorum VII.39, ed. Long, vol. 2, p. 314): τριμερῆ φασὶν εἶναι τὸν κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν λόγον. εἶναι γὰρ αὐτοῦ τὸ μέν τι φυσικόν· τὸ δὲ ἠθικόν· τὸ δὲ λογικόν. οὕτω δὲ men of letters holding some important public office and usually pertaining at least loosely to one of the philosophical schools. 67 On the other hand, the polysemous word ἐπιστήμη can also denote the philosopher's approach to gaining wisdom and knowledge. In either case, φιλοσοφία will comprise ἐπιστήμη. 68 However, on the other hand, philosophia sensu stricto can be seen as a scientific discipline, as is often the case today. 69 Thus, philosophia can be seen as an ars 70 or a scientia. Thomas Aquinas states in his Sententia libri Metaphysicae (IV.4.7, ed. Spiazzi, p. 574): Licet autem dicatur quod philosophia est scientia, non autem dialectica et sophistica, non tamen per hoc removetur quin dialectica et sophistica sint scientiae. 'Although it may be said that philosophy is a science, not so dialectic and sophistic, although by this it will not be denied that dialectic and sophistic can be sciences. [He goes on to state in what way the latter two can also be considered scientiae.]' Philosophia est ars artium, et disciplina disciplinarum. 'Philosophy is the art of arts, the science of sciences.' Although the Greeks did not keep what we now call 'philosophy' and 'science' neatly apart, already around 500 BC there were men who engaged exclusively in the one or the otherexclusively philosophers (e. g. Heraclitus or Zeno) and exclusively scientists/scholars (Hecataeos of Miletus, Hippocrates of Chios, Theaetetus). Of course, some also did both, such as Parmenides, Democritus, and, later on, Aristotle.
Derived from the Stoic physica, natural science was often called naturalis philosophia in the Middle Ages and early modern times instead of naturalis scientia. 72 Among Epicureans, the term φυσιολογία, taken over by Cicero as physiologia, was used in the same sense. In fact, traces of this view were to remain in place until recently: German-speaking universities housed the natural sciences in a Philosophische Fakultät II (adding the number 'II' to differentiate from the human sciences and philosophy proper). 73 The definite division between natural science and philosophy takes place as late as in the eighteenth and nineteenth century; Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), in particular, builds the foundation for a new, narrower meaning of philosophy. 74 In the wake of the great successes of the 'hard' sciences since the Scientific Revolution (see chap. 12 below), some polemical scientists have insisted that philosophy is not a scientific enterprise at all and concluded that it is therefore of little value. 75 Paulsen (1877: 35) formulates this point especially drastically by comparing philosophy metaphorically to idlers and robbers: 72 Corpus Corporum (as of 1 March 2016) has 24 occurrences of the former versus 40 of the latter before Aquinas, and 133 and 347 before AD 1600. Thus, naturalis philosophia is losing ground in the Late Middle Ages. There seems to be an increased awareness of scientia as distinct from philosophia. 73 This name persists to this day at some universities, such as the Humboldt University in Berlin. 74 See further Wieland (1970: 16). 75 For instance, Zhmud, writing on this topic, does not define what he means exactly by philosophy and science; he just states an 'epistemologische Andersartigkeit […], wissenschaftliche Probleme können erfolgreich gelöst werden, philosophische Probleme sind prinzipiell unlösbar' ('epistemological difference […], scientific problems can be solved successfully, philosophical problems are unsolvable in principle'; 1994: 1). Zhmud seems to take philosophy mostly as metaphysics, which in turn he sees as a kind of depersonalised mythology, leading to famous 'pre-Socratic' statements that everything is water or fire or infinity. His disdain of philosophy on the one hand and his approval for practically applicable science on the other may be connected with his materialist Soviet background. In other publications, he shows a general scorn for myth and religion.
So möge sie in ähnlicher Weise der Wissenschaft vorausgehen, wie etwa Räuber und allerlei Arbeit und Ordnung hassendes Gesindel in Amerika als Pioniere der Zivilisation dem Ackerbauer und Städtegründer vorangehen. 'It [philosophy] may precede science similarly to how robbers and all kinds of work-and order-hating rabble precede the farmers and founders of cities as pioneers of civilisation in America.' Others emphasise today the personal character of philosophy in improving the philosopher, or see it as a human science.
παιδεία, παίδευσιςeruditio §7 Although παιδεία can be translated as eruditio in Latin, 76 there is no direct correspondence for these words. In Greek παιδεία, 77 παίδευμα, and παίδευσις are similar terms, all of them meaning literally 'what is done with the young (in order to cultivate them)'. The first denotes the entire process and the resulting state, the second that which is taught in order to reach it, and the third the action and means of achieving it. The Latin term eruditio is similar in meaning, although it looks at the situation from the result ex negativo: literally as 'de-savagisation'. All of these terms emphasise more the state of education one attains through learning than science proper. For Aristotle, mere general education (παιδεία) is a kind of condition (τρόπος τῆς ἕξεως; De partibus animalium I.1, 639a1-4) different from the scientist's in-depth study (ἐπιστήμη): Περὶ πᾶσαν θεωρίαν τε καὶ μέθοδον, ὁμοίως ταπεινοτέραν τε καὶ τιμιωτέραν, δύο φαίνονται τρόποι τῆς ἕξεως εἶναι, ὧν τὴν μὲν ἐπιστήμην τοῦ πράγματος καλῶς ἔχει προσαγορεύειν, τὴν δ' οἷον παιδείαν τινά. 'For all theoretical and methodological endeavours, be they humbler or worthier, there seem to be two kinds of conditions. The one may rightly be called a scientific knowledge of a thing, the other [merely] like education.' This παιδείαalthough not reaching scientific standardsis still addressed as a θεωρία and μέθοδος to gain insight. It is reserved for free men, as is stressed in Politica VIII.3, 1338a: ὅτι μὲν τοίνυν ἔστι παιδεία τις, ἣν οὐχ ὡς χρησίμην παιδευτέον τοὺς υἱεῖς οὐδ' ὡς ἀναγκαίαν ἀλλ' ὡς ἐλευθέριον καὶ καλήν, φανερόν ἐστιν. παιδεία, παίδευσιςeruditio 'It is clear that there exists some kind of education which is not taught as practically useful to sons, not as necessary, but as something free and beautiful.' It will become clear in chapter 9 below how this παιδεία gave rise to the expression ἐγκύκλιος παιδείαapproximately 'education in all the circles of disciplines'and would in turn lead to the genre of natural histories and finally to the 'encyclopaedia'. Its canon led to the artes liberales, which are, again, reserved for free men.

διδασκαλίαdoctrina
§8 Doctrina is the term often used for the teaching of science and other learning. The wordderived from doceo ('to teach')corresponds to διδασκαλία ('learning'), which is likewise derived from the word for 'to teach' (διδάσκω Σπουδή and μελέτη in Greek and studium in Latin belong to the same semantic province, although these terms are broader. For example, Pliny calls the Numidian King Iuba (Naturalis historia V.1.16, ed. Ernout et al., vol. 5, p. 52) studiorum claritate memorabilior etiam quam regno ('even more memorable by the fame of his scientific studies than as a king'). Georges defines this use as 'das wissenschaftliche Streben, die wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung, das Studieren' ('scientific pursuit, scientific occupation, study'). Of course, studium has a broad spectrum of meaning, more usually of any 'striving' after something.
μέθοδοςmethodus §9 Another Greek word that was taken over into Latin as a loanword (like historia and philosophia, encountered above) is μέθοδος. This Greek word is derived from 79 The theoretically more fitting disciplinaris/disciplinalis is very rare before the High Middle Ages. Occasionally, disciplinaliter is used to translate ἐπιστημονικῶς (e. g. several times by Eriugena). Another late word for 'scientifically' is scientifice, mentioned in §3 above. Themison of Laodicea (123-43 BC) seems to have founded this school. Caelius Aurelianus calls it the methodica disciplina. 88 This school's name will be the most common use of the word methodus, which otherwise remains quite in the background, at least until modern discussions of 'methodology' (note the sharp rise in early modern times in table 2 below). §10 In order to find out how common the terms considered are in literature in general through the ages, their absolute frequency per thousand words and their frequency classes were determined in table 2 and illustrated in figure 2. The values for the frequency classes are logarithmic, and low ones entail high frequency. 89 The numbers were calculated using Corpus Corporum for lemmata in five important time spans; 90 numbers for the tentative Greek equivalents are also provided, for Greek as a whole (TLG) and for Aristotle, an author who seems especially important for scientific terminology. The most common lemma, which is assigned frequency class 0, is given at the bottom; either sum or et tend to be the most common.
There are obviously significant differences between Greek and Latin usage as well as within these languages. The frequency classes for these words are two to three classes more common in Latin than in Greek. This may partly be explained by the absence in Latin of the most common Greek word: the article, which is (per thousand words) much more common than the most common Latin word. The absolute values in Latin still tend to be slightly higher than the corresponding ones in Greek.
88 Caelius Aurelianus, Tardae passiones IV.1.6, ed. Drabkin, p. 816. 89 More precisely, frequency classes are a binary measure of how much less often a word occurs than the most frequent word in a language. Thus, a word (say) 16 times (= 2 4 ) less frequent than the most common one in the language in question belongs to class 4. The precise formula is: cl(#word) = FLOOR [0.5log 2 (f(#word)/f(#most frequent word))]. More details in e. g. Meier (1978). 90 The same samples were used for the benchmark corpora below (chap. 18 §2). See there for details on them. The most frequent Greek word is the article, which is lacking in Latin (15.5 million in the entire online TLG as of January 2016), followed by καί (6.1 million), δέ (2.1 million), and εἰμί (1.8 million).
Aristotle, whose importance for the further development of Latin scientific vocabulary will become amply clear in chapter 7, uses only ἐπιστήμη and μέθοδος significantly more frequently than the Greek average; most of the other words he even uses less often. The term ἐπιστήμη is clearly very important to Aristotle. In Latin, ars is in Antiquity by far the most common of the studied words; scientia and doctrina become more common over time, the former reaching Aristotle's frequency class early on, but, strangely, its frequency drops again in the sample from early modern times; in contrast, historia becomes more common. The frequency of disciplina stays relatively constant, though in decline. It can be observed that the early modern frequencies are again closing in on the classical ones, in some cases showing these authors' conscious imitatio of Antiquity (philosophia, ars, scientia). The Greek loan methodus becomes nearly as common as in Aristotle in early modern times after having previously been rare. If the numbers of all these words are added up, a rather stable value between 1‰ and 1.5‰ is reached. The core scientific and scholarly terms seem to remain of constant and high importance across more than two thousand years. In order to gain more precise values for the three most central lemmata for 'science' in Latin (scientia, ars, disciplina), occurrences per thousand words for all texts in Corpus Corporum are plotted diachronically in figure 3. As all meanings of the three words are counted in the plot, it may be better to refrain from drawing overly ambitious conclusions. Nonetheless, it would seem that the importance of the term scientia already overtakes that of disciplina in Late Antiquity, 93 and that of ars (think of artes liberales) in the twelfth century, as the trend lines nicely hint. The corpus of Croatian Latin used for early modern times in table 2 may have a humanist belles-lettres bias. In early modern timesduring the Scientific Revolutionthe word scientia hardly declined in popularity. Other data will be biased too; for instance, the numerous works by Thomas Aquinas are responsible for the huge peak of scientia in figure 3; indeed, the authors and texts were not selected according to any methodological principle. Nonetheless, it seems clear that scientia becomes the most frequent of these terms as time advances and that its frequency rose in Late Antiquity and again in scholasticism, and possibly again at the end of the Middle Ages. Indeed, its linear trend line 94 in the illustration more than quadruples during the 1,800 years depicted, in contrast to the other two words, whose trend lines remain more or less constant or even fall. §11 In order to understand a semantic field fully, more than a look at near-synonyms is necessary. We now widen the scope and sketch a further circle of words involved in this semantic field. The relationship between the key terms will be studied further in chapter 5. Many of the terms that came to be connected more loosely to the semantic field of 'science' are defined by Aristotle in his book of definitions (Metaphysica Δ): ἀρχή, αἴτιον, στοιχεῖον, φύσις, ἀναγκαῖον, ἕν, ὄν, οὐσία, ταὐτά, ἀντικείμενα, πρότερα καὶ ὕστερα, δύναμις, ποσόν, ποιόν, πρός τι, τέλειον, πέρας, καθ' ὅ, διάθεσις, ἕξις, πάθος, στέρησις, ἔχειν, ἔκ τινος, μέρος, ὅλον, κολοβόν, γένος, ψεῦδος, συμβεβηκός. Many of them are key concepts for Aristotle's way of practising science and philosophy, and will remain very important for two millennia. Other important concepts could include θεωρία (contemplatio, speculatio)opposed to πρᾶξις (praxis, actio), which roughly demarcates scientia from the 'practical' artes -δύναμις (facultas, vis, virtus), 95 or ὄρος (definitio). This last term was formalised and emphasised by Aristotle as fundamental for ensuring that people are speaking about the same thing. He claims that Socrates was the first to use strict definitions. 96 Much further Greek scientific terminology was bor-93 The peak exhibited by disciplina in the third century is mostly due to Tertullian. 94 Linear regression with ordinary least squares was used. Of course, the data does not have to be linear at all, but the line still illustrates the overall growth. 95 For Plato see Souilhé (1919). 96 Metaphysica M3, 1078b.