Skip navigation
London Review of Books

Spiv v. Gentleman subscriber-only content

Jonathan Barnes

  • The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece by Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin

Already hailed in America as ‘climactic’ and ‘monumental’, The Way and the Word is the product of a collaboration between an eminent Hellenist and an expert Sinologist. It compares ancient Greek thought and ancient Chinese thought. The period of comparison is officially the six centuries from about 400 BC to about 200 AD, but in fact a considerable part of the Greek material is taken from the fifth century BC. Although the area of comparison is officially the physical sciences, together with the ‘physical’ part of philosophy, from which ethics and logic are excluded, a substantial part of the Chinese material deals with political and moral reflections.

subscriber-only content Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.

Jonathan Barnes, who taught philosophy in Oxford, Geneva and Paris, lives in retirement in the middle of France. He has written several books about ancient philosophy, the most recent of which, Coffee with Aristotle, has a preface by his brother.