West in History – XI
continued…
3.0 Knowledge Aspirations
From a comparative and civilization point of view, the rise of modern science appears quite different than it does when seen entirely as an intra-European movement. In the first instance, we realized that dedicated investigators of the processes of nature existed in other societies and civilizations around the world. Over the course of time, learned scholars exerted their utmost to mould the technical tools and the explanatory devices needed to accomplish the task of mapping out an explaining all the realms of nature.
Proven though not acknowledge by some authorities in the West that the Arabic-Islamic culture and civilization had the most advanced science to be found in the world prior to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In optics, astronomy, the mathematical disciplines of geometry and trigonometry and medicines – all these accomplishments outshone the West.[1] These scientific activities were often scattered geographically, isolated in their influence and conducted in semi-secrecy in some cases.
The transmission of important correspondence and scientific treatises between investigators in distant places was often long delayed, incomplete or even completely interrupted by local events and political upheavals.[2] Still, the work went forward and over due time, indispensable elements of scientific practice accumulated and became a unique heritage of human endeavor.
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