Weibe/Western Epistemic Tradition, 4. The Rise and Decline of the Sciences

A brief account is provided of the advancement of ‘science-like’ thinking in the Hellenistic period which, in religio-cultural rather than political terms, stretches from the death of Alexander the Great to the decrees of Theodosius in the last decades of the fourth century of the Common Era. This overview will show why the argument whether Aristotle and his successors, or the pre-Socratics before them, gave birth to science is misleading.