On 13 April 1757, Kant published an announcement of his lectures on physical geography for the summer semester, which provided an explanation of what physical geography is, and an outline of the content that would be covered in his lectures. Kant raises a series of objections to a plausible-sounding hypothesis concerning whether the moisture of the west winds that pass over Northern Europe stems from the large body of water that the wind had traversed, namely the Atlantic Ocean. The chapter explains that there are basically three ways of looking at the Earth. The first two, the mathematical approach and political approach, can discover sufficient means to enable a keen student to make progress in a manner that is as convenient as it is adequate; thorough and accurate insight of the third type, however, involves greater effort and obstacles.

The founding, during the course of the fourth century, first of Plato's Academy and then of Aristotle's school, the Lyceum or Peripatos, had far-reaching significance not just for what may be called higher education, but also for scientific research. The Alexandria became pre-eminent in many branches of scientific research in the third century, even though Athens remained supreme throughout antiquity in philosophy. Already in the mid fourth century BC Plato and Isocrates distinguished between two main types of reasons for studying mathematics, that is broadly the practical and the theoretical. Both geography and astronomy have on the one hand a descriptive and on the other a theoretical, mathematical aspect. The history of medicine and the life sciences in the Hellenistic period illustrates several of our principal themes, the increase in specialization, but also the fragmentation of scientific research, the role of royal patronage, and the patchy success in the application of scientific knowledge to practical ends.