BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Foresight in Ancient Civilisations - Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd\
 , University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20130118T173000Z
DTEND:20130118T183000Z
UID:TALK39994@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Janet Gibson
DESCRIPTION:Abstract\n\n\nThis lecture will review just some of the extens
 ive evidence from ancient civilisations – mainly China\, Mesopotamia and
  Greece – that helps to throw light on four interrelated questions that 
 form my principal agenda:  (1) What items were the subjects of prediction?
   (2) How were predictions made: on what basis did people think they could
  foresee the future?  (3) Why were they interested in doing so?  (4) How i
 s foresight related first to divination and prediction in general\, and th
 en to wisdom and prudence?\n	The subjects on which predictions were attemp
 ted (Q 1) can be used to reveal the concerns and values of the groups in q
 uestion.  While hundreds of different techniques were tried out (Q 2) that
  will lead me to examine the ways ancient theorists evaluated them and to 
 a discussion of the growth of scepticism.  The aims and motives of ancient
  investigators (Q 3) include influencing policy and advising rulers as wel
 l as building up their own prestige (when they got it right).  Most import
 ant is Q 4.  What were the resources available in antiquity to learn to ma
 ke more prudent and wiser judgements about what to do\, and to that end do
  we not still need all the resources available to us to do the same?\n\nBi
 ography\n\n\nGeoffrey Lloyd is Professor Emeritus of Ancient Philosophy an
 d Science at Cambridge\, where he was Master of Darwin College from 1989 t
 o 2000.  He is now based at the Needham Research Institute\, whose Trust h
 e chaired from 1992 to 2002.  He has held Visiting Professorships in Europ
 e (France\, Spain\, Italy\, Germany) in the Far East (PRC\, Taiwan\, Korea
 \, Japan\, Singapore)\, Australasia\, and North and South America.  He has
  published 25 books\, initially concentrating on ancient Greek philosophy 
 and science and then embarking on detailed comparative studies with ancien
 t Chinese thought.  His three most recent books\, which tackle the underly
 ing philosophical problems of such comparisons and related issues in cogni
 tive science\, are:  Cognitive Variations: Reflections on the Unity and Di
 versity of the Human Mind (2007: the subject of a special number of Interd
 isciplinary Science Reviews in 2010)\, Disciplines in the Making (2009) an
 d Being\, Humanity and Understanding (2012\, all from Oxford University Pr
 ess).  He has been translated into12 different languages.\nHe became a Fel
 low of the British Academy in 1983 and an Honorary Foreign Member of the A
 merican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.  He was awarded the Sarton m
 edal for History of Science in 1987\, and the Kenyon Medal for Classical S
 tudies in 2007.  He holds Honorary Fellowships at King’s\, Darwin\, and 
 Tembusu College Singapore\, and Honorary Doctorates from the Universities 
 of Athens and Oxford.  He was knighted for ‘services to the history of t
 hought’ in 1997.\n
LOCATION:LMH\, Lady Mitchell Hall
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR