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.

Logikôs Argumentation in Aristotle’s Natural Science

Apeiron ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Woodcox
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Close Textual Analysis ◽  
Standard Domain

AbstractThis paper offers a novel interpretation of the nature and role of logical (logikôs) argumentation in Aristotle’s natural philosophy. In contrast to the standard domain interpretation, which makes logikôs argumentation the contrary of phusikôs, relying on principles drawn from outside the domain of natural science, I propose that the essential or defining feature of logikôs argumentation is the use of principles that are general relative to the question under investigation. My interpretation is developed and illustrated with a close textual analysis of Aristotle’s explanation of mule sterility in Generation of Animals II 8.

Promoting Empirical Knowledge in Habsburg Europe

Nuncius ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-118
Author(s):  
Luca Ciancio
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Medical Humanism ◽  
Mathematical Sciences

Abstract Recent studies on the functions performed by natural and mathematical sciences in Renaissance courts have shown how closely and extensively the domains of medicine, astrology and politics interacted with each other. The dedicatory letters to Cardinal and Prince-Bishop Bernardo Cles printed in works of medicine, astronomy and natural philosophy by scholars like Marco Antonio Rozoni (1524), Sebastian Münster (1527), Luca Gaurico (1531) Pietro Antonio Mattioli (1533) and Ludovico Nogarola (1536) reveal how much attention Ferdinand I’s Supreme Chancellor, a prelate and politician of unquestioned authority and power, devoted to such influential domains of natural science. In particular, they suggest that Bernardo was not unfavorable to a view of natural knowledge inspired by the anti-astrological skepticism of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. What is more, his intellectual proximity to learned physicians working in the wake of Nicolò Leoniceno’s medical humanism lends credit to the image of a patron, and a ruler, who was oriented to rely preferably on natural knowledge grounded in repeatable sensorial experience.

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).

On Contents Division of Ancient Greek Philosophy

2018 ◽  
pp. 369-374
Author(s):  
Shaoyu Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Speculative Philosophy ◽  
Science Ethics ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of

The history of Western philosophy usually divides the ancient Greek philosophy into three parts, namely, natural science, ethics, and logic. The author deems that the ancient Greek philosophy should be divided into two categories: speculative philosophy and practical philosophy, for which writings of Plato and Aristotle provide sufficient grounds.

scholarly journals Can universities save us from disaster?

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Basic Task ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to spell out the urgent need to correct structural rationality defects in academia as it exists at present, so that it may become actively and effectively engaged in helping us solve the grave global problems that confront us. Design/methodology/approach The paper spells out an argument for the urgent need to bring about a revolution in academic inquiry so that the basic aim becomes social wisdom and not just specialized knowledge, problems of living being put at the heart of the academic enterprise. Findings Natural science needs to become more like natural philosophy; social science needs to become social methodology or social philosophy; and a basic task of academia needs to become public education about what our problems are and what we need to do about them. Almost every part and aspect of academia needs to change. Research limitations/implications The implication is the urgent need to bring about an intellectual/institutional revolution in academic inquiry, so that the aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge. Practical implications There are substantial practical implications for natural science, social inquiry and the humanities, education, social, economic and political life. Social implications There is a need for a new kind of academic inquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping us make social progress towards as good a world as possible. The social implications are profound. Originality/value In the author’s view, bringing about the academic revolution, from knowledge-inquiry to wisdom-inquiry, is the single most important thing needed for the long-term interests of humanity.

A Reply to Rothman

1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Cropsey
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Natural Right

Readers of Stanley Rothman's article “The Revival of Classical Political Philosophy: A Critique” will be aware that the title he has chosen does not indicate the full scope of his endeavor. He has in fact attempted to state and criticize the grounds of classical political and natural philosophy, and to state and in a certain measure defend the grounds of modern social and natural science. Exceptional resources of scholarship and analytic power would be needed to dispose of those tremendous themes, which I believe Rothman has not succeeded in doing. A prominent purpose of Rothman's paper is to criticize the work of Professor Leo Strauss and of some of his students, on the view that he, and after his instruction they, are the animators of the attempted revival of classical doctrines concerning natural right. The attempt to revive natural right is presented as complementary with a belief in the weakness of social science as now understood by the majority of academic and other professionals. The purpose of the present reflections on Rothman's article is to see how far he has made a valid criticism of the classics and of the men he regards as their attempted restorers; and to consider the soundness of his views on the received sciences.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document