Winning the modernity lottery: Commentary on Reviel Netz,‘The place of Archimedes in world history’

Abstract

My commentary on Reviel Netz's essay ‘The Place of Archimedes in World History’ makes three main claims: first, that the argument concerning the probability and improbability is flawed; second, that the argument nonetheless carries the ring of plausibility because of the enormity of the alleged outcome value of the improbable chain of events Netz traces, namely the origins of modernity; and third, that the notion of modernity, although central to the institutionalization of the history of science as a discipline in the mid-twentieth century, is too amorphous and ideologically laden to be of analytical value for the history of science.