But why had science lost its way in the first place? What appeal could these teachings of Pythagoras and Plato have had for their contemporaries? They provided, I believe, an intellectually respectable justification for a corrupt social order. The mercantile tradition that had led to Ionian science also led to a slave economy. You could get richer if you owned a lot of slaves. Athens in the time of Plato and Aristotle had a vast slave population. All that brave Athenian talk about democracy applied only to a privileged few.


40 min 35 sec - Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update) - The Backbone of Night


But why had science lost its way in the first place? What appeal could these teachings of Pythagoras and Plato have had for their contemporaries?...

But why had science lost its way in the first place? What appeal could these teachings of Pythagoras and Plato have had for their contemporaries?...

But why had science lost its way in the first place? What appeal could these teachings of Pythagoras and Plato have had for their contemporaries?...

But why had science lost its way in the first place? What appeal could these teachings of Pythagoras and Plato have had for their contemporaries?...