The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Berryman
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek

Music and the Origins of Ancient Science

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Pesic
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Arithmetic Geometry ◽  
Web Browsers ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Crucial Element ◽  
Ancient Science

Music entered deeply into the making of modern science because it was a crucial element of ancient natural philosophy, through which it thereafter remained active well into the formation of the “new philosophy” during the seventeenth century. The Pythagorean connection between music, numbers, and the sensual world remained potent in the quadrivium, the four-fold study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music that was the centerpiece of higher education until about the eighteenth century. This chapter surveys the ongoing connection between music and its sister sciences in the quadrivium from Plato and the Pythagoreans to Nicomachus and Boethius. The mythical story of Pythagoras in the blacksmith shop arguably represents the earliest recorded experiment, in the later sense of that word. Ancient Greek distinctions between number and magnitude were crucial elements in the unfolding interaction between arithmetic, geometry, and music. Throughout the book where various sound examples are referenced, please see http://mitpress.mit.edu/musicandmodernscience (please note that the sound examples should be viewed in Chrome or Safari Web browsers).

Robert Boyle and Subversive Religion in the Early Restoration

1974 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Free Inquiry ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Competing Ideas ◽  
Early Restoration

Boyle's natural philosophy as it evolved in the 1660s was the product in part of some competing philosophies and theologies. Since he defined his own thought in terms of these others, one of the best ways of understanding it and its origins would seem to be to study it in relation to this context of competing ideas—especially as this has never before been done for Boyle. This was no mere battle over philosophical and religious ideas; beneath the surface lay extreme ideological differences; the nature of society and government was at stake just as it was in Boyle's dialogue with the sects in the late 1640s and the 1650s. Indeed some of his opponents in the 1660s still represent positions against which he argued before the Restoration, and these are the ones I wish to consider here.In 1665 or 1666 Boyle wroteA Free Inquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature. By “the vulgarly received notion of nature” he means the conception deriving from ancient Greek philosophy, both Platonic and Aristotelian, that there is a governing agency in nature apart from God which cannot be reduced to the mechanical principles of matter and motion. This agency is called variously plastic nature, the astral spirits or the soul of the world, and as Boyle says is conceived by “the schools” as “a being that…does always that which is best.” Boyle's intention is to show that his own idea of nature is preferable to this Peripatetic and Platonic one because his goes further than its rival towards a proper understanding of the relations between Creator and creation.

Vesalius and the Reading of Galen's Teleology*

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy G. Siraisi
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Experience ◽  
Ancient Texts

Sixteenth-century approaches to the world of nature remained resolutely bound to ancient texts. Hostility to the medieval past, new theories, new experiences, and new information were evidently abundantly present. But medieval predecessors were far more likely to be criticized for failure to understand ancient authority than for slavish dependence on it; dissatisfaction with intellectual tradition was apt to express itself in form of a call for return to the ideas of ancients who preceded the standard school authors in time; and in every branch of natural philosophy, natural history, and medicine, examination of the writings of ancient Greek authors was a major, perhaps the major, part of the task of the investigator. Innovators — some of them very bold and some very eccentric indeed — reworked, recombined, and criticized the ancients, or measured their teachings against modern experience; but they seldom ignored them.

scholarly journals The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 88-92
Author(s):  
Sylvia Berryman (book author) ◽  
Serafina Cuomo (review author)
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek

Aristotle, the Inventor of Natural Science

2018 ◽  
pp. 234-256
Author(s):  
Jochen Althoff
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Spherical Shells ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Fold System ◽  
Stable Element ◽  
Natural Place ◽  
Scientific Disciplines

The chapter surveys the contributions of Aristotle to the development of ancient Greek science. Aristotle sought the stable element and reliable truth within changes. Aristotle develops a three-fold system of scientific disciplines: practical, productive, and theoretic (including mathematics and natural philosophy). The primary natural kinds are the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, composed of the fundamental qualities of hot/cold and wet/dry. Each has a natural place, earth in a sphere at the center of the cosmos, and the others in spherical shells around that. The eternal circular heavenly motions are due to the fifth element, “aithēr.” Aristotle’s scala naturae classifies all life: plants are capable of nutrition and reproduction, animals can also perceive and move, and humans can reason. Aristotle also studied the transformation of substances, but mainly focusses on the generation, the parts, and the functions of animals. Aristotle’s chief explanatory tool is the “final” cause, the purpose for which a thing occurs.

Teleology Without Tears: Aristotle and the Role of Mechanistic Conceptions of Organisms

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Berryman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of

In this paper I outline a role for mechanistic conceptions of organisms in ancient Greek natural philosophy, especially the study of organisms. By ‘mechanistic conceptions’ I mean the use of ideas and techniques drawn from the field of mechanics to investigate the natural world. ‘Mechanistic conceptions’ of organisms in ancient Greek philosophy, then, are those that draw on the ancient understanding of the field called ‘mechanics’ — hê mêchanikê technê—to investigate living things, rather than those bearing some perceived similarity to modern notions of ‘the mechanical.’ I have argued elsewhere that evidence of mechanistic conceptions of the natural world can be found, not only among seventeenth and eighteenth century ‘mechanical philosophers,’ but also—albeit in vestigial form — in some ancient Greek texts. Unfortunately, these reports are slight, often by detractors of this approach, and offer only clues as to the motivational context for employing these mechanical conceptions. Here, my purpose is to suggest what role they might have played in the history of natural philosophy.

Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy: The Bridge to Science

1981 ◽  
pp. 123-145
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Schneider ◽  
Lynne Morton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek

Derveni papyrus

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeria Piano
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Religious Text ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Universe

As one of the most ancient Greek papyri ever found (it dates back to the second half of the 4th century bce), and given the length of its extant part, the Derveni papyrus effectively represents the oldest “book” of Europe. It was found at Derveni, near Thessaloniki, in 1962, close to the rich tomb of a knight belonging to the army of Philip II or Alexander the Great. The volumen had been placed on the funeral pyre along with other offerings, and thanks to the process of semi-carbonisation it underwent, the upper half of the roll was preserved, maintaining a good degree of readability. The papyrus contains a philosophical-religious text, mostly in the form of an allegorical commentary on a theo-cosmogonical poem attributed to Orpheus. The first columns expound a religious and ritual discourse that deals with issues related to sacrifices, souls, daimones, retribution, cosmic justice, and divination. In the commentary (cols. VII–XXVI), the Orphic hexameters are systematically quoted and interpreted in terms of natural philosophy of a Presocratic brand. The mythical narrative of the succession of the gods, as well as of the origin of the cosmos, is thus matched by a cosmological and physical account, which is equally related to the origin and the functioning of the universe, and is sustained by a theologised conception of nature.

Astrobiology and Society

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Steven J. Dick
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Extraterrestrial Life ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
Cosmological Context ◽  
History Of

This chapter traces the history of the search for life in the universe, from the ancient Greek atomists to the emergence of modern astrobiology. The idea of inhabited worlds dates back at least to the ancient Greeks and was rationally discussed as a part of natural philosophy, mainly in the context of cosmological worldviews. If cosmological worldviews gave birth to the idea of extraterrestrial life, then philosophy and literature, in their traditional role of examining the human condition, explored the ramifications of the idea borne of that cosmological context. Interest in astrobiology and society in its broadest sense dates back at least a quarter century to the days when NASA was planning its Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program. Today, astrobiology is a thriving enterprise around the world and the societal aspects are becoming an integral part of it.

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