De rebus naturae: Objects and Observers in Hellenistic Science

Daryn Lehoux's project explored the complex interrelationships between the objects of scientific inquiry, and the norms, processes, and structures of that inquiry itself. This included not only the tools and methods of investigation, but also the cultural, intellectual, and religious contexts of that investigation. What emerges is a view of science that shows a strong interaction between theories, objects, and the investigative frameworks from which something like a picture of the world emerges. It is also in the context of this picture that new phenomena and new observations come to be ordered. Hellenistic science serves as a particularly interesting locus for this investigation, as it is theoretically and empirically rich, but also foreign enough to the modern eye to throw some of the most intransigent difficulties posed by the questions Daryn Lehoux asked into startling and useful contrast. This book project built on a series of papers published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Isis, and Representations.