Benjamin Farrington

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Benjamin Farrington (1891-1974) was an Irish scholar and professor of the Classics. Born in Cork, he was educated in Ireland and taught at the university level in Ireland and South Africa. He wrote several books on the development of scientific thought in Western culture, with a particular emphasis on the contributions of the Greek philosophers and Francis Bacon.

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[edit] Academic career

Farrington obtained his university education at University College, Cork (now National University of Ireland, Cork) and Trinity College Dublin. He was a lecturer in the classics in Belfast, taught for fifteen years at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and was a Professor of Classics for over twenty years at Swansea, South Wales.

In the 1940s he became involved with socialist politics and a series of lectures he gave in Dublin schools was used as the basis of his pamphlet The Challenge of Socialism.

He retired from teaching in 1961.

[edit] Critical reception

"We are tantalized because his case is so nearly good, and might have been very good. If only he would avoid ridiculous overstatements bound to alienate,... Lastly, the book annoys, because ... it abounds in misleading statements or half-truths." — W. K. C. Guthrie, review of Science and Politics in the Ancient World, The Classical Review, 54(1940): 34-5.

"There is enough truth in Professor Farrington's main contention to cause one to wish that his book had been more fairly conceived. Let it be granted that politics and vested religious interests have often opposed the scientific spirit;... Yet it remains true that Greek humanism is as notable an achievement as Greek science.... Science is the chief foe of superstion, but to suppose that science alone will ever achieve man's good is itself a grandiose superstition." — William C. Greene, review of Science and Politics in the Ancient World, Classical Philology, 36(1941): 201-2.

"Professor Farrington, in this book, conclusively shows that the Popular Superstition which in the Ancient World formed so effective an obstacle to the progress of science was a supersition which was, for the most part, deliberately thought out by the 'patricians' and deliberately foisted by them upon the 'plebians.'" — M. F. Ashley Montagu, review of Science and Politics in the Ancient World, Isis, 33(1941): 270-3.

"Farrington's Greek Science thus seems at once very stimulating and very biased, excellent in many respects but to be read with a critical mind. Until a better book on the subject comes along—and that may not be soon—it will fill a consicerable need for a readable work dealing with the science of the ancient Greeks." — Bentley Glass, review of Greek Science: Its Meaning for Us, Quarterly Review of Biology, 30 (1955): 281.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Science in Antiquity (1936, reprinted in 1969).
  • Science and Politics in the Ancient World (1939, 1946).
  • Greek Science: Its Meaning for Us; Part I (1944, reprinted with Part II in 1963, paperback 2000 ISBN 0-85124-631-1).
  • Head and Hand in Ancient Greece: Four Studies in the Social Relations of Thought (1947, paperback 2001 ISBN 0-85124-654-0).
  • Greek Science: Its Meaning for Us; Part II (1949, reprinted with Part I in 1963, paperback 1981 ISBN 0-85124-288-X, 2000 ISBN 0-85124-631-1).
  • Francis Bacon, Philosopher of Industrial Science (1951 ISBN 0-374-92706-5, 1973 ISBN 0-8383-1685-9).
  • Francis Bacon, Pioneer of Planned Science (1963, 1969 ASIN B0006CF4JO)
  • The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (1964, paperback 1967 ISBN 0-226-23885-7).
  • Lucretius, editor (1965).
  • What Darwin Really Said (1966, paperback 1996 ISBN 0-8052-1062-8).
  • The Faith of Epicurus (1967).
  • The Philosophy of Francis Bacon: An essay on its development from 1603 to 1609, with new translations of fundamental texts (1970).
  • Samuel Butler and the Odyssey (1974 ISBN 0-8383-1777-4).

[edit] References

  • Communist Party of Ireland, "Some Famous Irish Communists: Benjamin Farrington (1891-1974)", Communist Party of Ireland, (accessed June 18, 2006).
  • Needham, Joseph, "Preface" in Farrington, Benjamin, Greek Science: Its Meaning for Us. Nottingham, Spokesman (Russell House), 2000.
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