One of the first women to study philosophy????

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Dr Janet Goodall

On 26 Mar 2010, at 23:35, Caroline Tully <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> For interest's sake...
>
> From
> <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Hypatia-Ancient-Alexandri
> as-Great-Female-Scholar.html>:
> ===
> ===
> ======================================================================
> ==========
>
> Hypatia, Ancient Alexandria's Great Female Scholar
> An avowed paganist in a time of religious strife, Hypatia was also one
> of the first women to study math, astronomy and philosophy
>
> * By Sarah Zielinski
> * Smithsonian.com, March 15, 2010
>
> One day on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, in the year 415 or 416, a
> mob of Christian zealots led by Peter the Lector accosted a woman's
> carriage and dragged her from it and into a church, where they
> stripped her and beat her to death with roofing tiles. They then tore
> her body apart and burned it. Who was this woman and what was her
> crime? Hypatia was one of the last great thinkers of ancient
> Alexandria and one of the first women to study and teach mathematics,
> astronomy and philosophy. Though she is remembered more for her
> violent death, her dramatic life is a fascinating lens through which
> we may view the plight of science in an era of religious and sectarian
> conflict.
>
> Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C., the city of Alexandria
> quickly grew into a center of culture and learning for the ancient
> world. At its heart was the museum, a type of university, whose
> collection of more than a half-million scrolls was housed in the
> library of Alexandria.
>
> Alexandria underwent a slow decline beginning in 48 B.C., when Julius
> Caesar conquered the city for Rome and accidentally burned down the
> library. (It was then rebuilt.) By 364, when the Roman Empire split
> and Alexandria became part of the eastern half, the city was beset by
> fighting among Christians, Jews and pagans. Further civil wars
> destroyed much of the library's contents. The last remnants likely
> disappeared, along with the museum, in 391, when the archbishop
> Theophilus acted on orders from the Roman emperor to destroy all pagan
> temples. Theophilus tore down the temple of Serapis, which may have
> housed the last scrolls, and built a church on the site.
>
> The last known member of the museum was the mathematician and
> astronomer Theon-Hypatia's father.
>
> Some of Theon's writing has survived. His commentary (a copy of a
> classical work that incorporates explanatory notes) on Euclid's
> Elements was the only known version of that cardinal work on geometry
> until the 19th century. But little is known about his and Hypatia's
> family life. Even Hypatia's date of birth is contested-scholars long
> held that she was born in 370 but modern historians believe 350 to be
> more likely. The identity of her mother is a complete mystery, and
> Hypatia may have had a brother, Epiphanius, though he may have been
> only Theon's favorite pupil.
>
> Theon taught mathematics and astronomy to his daughter, and she
> collaborated on some of his commentaries. It is thought that Book III
> of Theon's version of Ptolemy's Almagest-the treatise that established
> the Earth-centric model for the universe that wouldn't be overturned
> until the time of Copernicus and Galileo-was actually the work of
> Hypatia.
>
> She was a mathematician and astronomer in her own right, writing
> commentaries of her own and teaching a succession of students from her
> home. Letters from one of these students, Synesius, indicate that
> these lessons included how to design an astrolabe, a kind of portable
> astronomical calculator that would be used until the 19th century.
>
> Beyond her father's areas of expertise, Hypatia established herself as
> a philosopher in what is now known as the Neoplatonic school, a belief
> system in which everything emanates from the One. (Her student
> Synesius would become a bishop in the Christian church and incorporate
> Neoplatonic principles into the doctrine of the Trinity.) Her public
> lectures were popular and drew crowds. "Donning [the robe of a
> scholar], the lady made appearances around the center of the city,
> expounding in public to those willing to listen on Plato or
> Aristotle," the philosopher Damascius wrote after her death.
>
> Hypatia never married and likely led a celibate life, which possibly
> was in keeping with Plato's ideas on the abolition of the family
> system. The Suda lexicon, a 10th-century encyclopedia of the
> Mediterranean world, describes her as being "exceedingly beautiful and
> fair of form. . . in speech articulate and logical, in her actions
> prudent and public-spirited, and the rest of the city gave her
> suitable welcome and accorded her special respect."
>
> Her admirers included Alexandria's governor, Orestes. Her association
> with him would eventually lead to her death.
>
> Theophilus, the archbishop who destroyed the last of Alexandria's
> great Library, was succeeded in 412 by his nephew, Cyril, who
> continued his uncle's tradition of hostilities toward other faiths.
> (One of his first actions was to close and plunder the churches
> belonging to the Novatian Christian sect.)
>
> With Cyril the head of the main religious body of the city and Orestes
> in charge of the civil government, a fight began over who controlled
> Alexandria. Orestes was a Christian, but he did not want to cede power
> to the church. The struggle for power reached its peak following a
> massacre of Christians by Jewish extremists, when Cyril led a crowd
> that expelled all Jews from the city and looted their homes and
> temples. Orestes protested to the Roman government in Constantinople.
> When Orestes refused Cyril's attempts at reconciliation, Cyril's monks
> tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him.
>
> Hypatia, however, was an easier target. She was a pagan who publicly
> spoke about a non-Christian philosophy, Neoplatonism, and she was less
> likely to be protected by guards than the now-prepared Orestes. A
> rumor spread that she was preventing Orestes and Cyril from settling
> their differences. From there, Peter the Lector and his mob took
> action and Hypatia met her tragic end.
>
> Cyril's role in Hypatia's death has never been clear. "Those whose
> affiliations lead them to venerate his memory exonerate him;
> anticlericals and their ilk delight in condemning the man," Michael
> Deakin wrote in his 2007 book Hypatia of Alexandria.
>
> Meanwhile, Hypatia has become a symbol for feminists, a martyr to
> pagans and atheists and a character in fiction. Voltaire used her to
> condemn the church and religion. The English clergyman Charles
> Kingsley made her the subject of a mid-Victorian romance. And she is
> the heroine, played by Rachel Weisz, in the Spanish movie Agora, which
> will be released later this year in the United States. The film tells
> the fictional story of Hypatia as she struggles to save the library
> from Christian zealots.
>
> Neither paganism nor scholarship died in Alexandria with Hypatia, but
> they certainly took a blow. "Almost alone, virtually the last
> academic, she stood for intellectual values, for rigorous mathematics,
> ascetic Neoplatonism, the crucial role of the mind, and the voice of
> temperance and moderation in civic life," Deakin wrote. She may have
> been a victim of religious fanaticism, but Hypatia remains an
> inspiration even in modern times.