past: classics, the modern legacy of the ancient world

Scholar in Residence at the Needham Research Institute and Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science at the University of Cambridge.

Sir Geoffrey Lloyd’s many books have launched the subject of Greek science as a major field in the history of classical philosophy. His numerous publications, starting with his 1966 book Polarity and Analogy, are widely cited by scholars in diverse fields of contemporary studies, as well as by classicists.

Lloyd has also pursued a deep comparative study of Chinese and Greek science, having learned Chinese in order to engage the primary sources. This kind of comparison makes a fundamental contribution to the question of what is and is not distinctive about the modern European intellectual tradition.

Sir Geoffrey Lloyd is the greatest living scholar of the history of ancient science. During his lifetime, his work completely transformed the field. He brought together insights from anthropology, sociology and general history to bear upon the history of ideas, and initiated the research program of comparative studies of Greek and Chinese science.

He showed how Greek science is a product of Greek society, and he crucially uncovered the great diversity of Greek scientific practices. One of his more recent works concerns various aspects of the problem of the psychic unity of humankind.

Among Sir Geoffrey Lloyd’s honors are: Fellow of the British Academy in 1983, the George Sarton Medal in 1987, Honorary Fellowship at King’s College in 1991, Honorary Foreign Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995, International Academy for the History of Science in 1997, Honorary Fellowship at Darwin in 2000 and an Honorary D. Litt by the University of Athens in 2003. Sir Geoffrey was knighted for ‘services to the history of thought’ in 1997. He received the Kenyon Medal for Classical scholarship from the British Academy in 2007, and an Hon. D. Litt by the University of Oxford in 2011.