History of Science Online - Course Info - Time tips - Semester at a glance - Weekly assignments at a glance - Timeline - Week 4: Ancient Greek science; Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle

What is nature? How is nature known?

In Raphael's "The School of Athens," Plato and Aristotle each point to what they believed was real. With one finger pointing upward, Plato points to the realm of ideal forms. With fingers spread, pointing downward, Aristotle points to the physical world of particulars, where forms and matter are combined in individual things.

 
View Raphael's painting, The School of Athens, which adorns the ceiling of St. Peter's basilica in the Vatican:

1. Scalable java applet at the Vatican website. Click on the two figures in the center to zoom in until you can see them in as much detail as you want.

2. Clickable version of the painting that identifies the figures Raphael included. You'll see many of the Presocratic philosophers from last week, too! Click on any figure to go to an explanation of that person.

3. Compare the Wikipedia version of the painting with identifications; and this higher resolution version of the full painting.

Put Plato and Aristotle in perspective:

• The emergence of mathematical astronomy in Ancient Mesopotamia provided the model for exact quantitative science in antiquity.
• Ancient Egyptian technology, including medical practice, illustrates the sophisticated evaluation of empirical results (e.g., case studies) that is possible in a technical tradition where practical know-how matters more than theoretical understanding or a belief in natural causes.
• The Presocratics established a tradition of logical debate as a search for theoretical causes.
• The Pythagoreans, both before and after Socrates, sought the explanation of natural things in contemplation of numbers and the relations between numbers.
• For Plato, the study of mathematics awakens the soul to a recognition of the Forms. Plato argued that reality inheres in the immaterial, eternal Forms of things rather than in their material instances, which are but shadows and pale reflections of a reality that is apprehended by the intellect rather than the senses.
• Aristotle disagreed, arguing that both the form and the matter of a natural thing are abstractions; that neither the form nor the matter by itself is real. Rather, what is real are the ever-changing things that are always combinations of both forms and matter. Therefore, an understanding of both forms and matter is essential to an understanding of the nature of the thing. That understanding can only be attained through extensive experience which yields universal statements that may be cast into logical demonstrations.

• 	What is Nature?	How is Nature known?
  Tradition	Type of explanation	Experience component	Mental component
  Mesopotamian astronomy	Interpretation of natural phenomena as signs of the will of the gods; practical know-how; mathematical modeling	Long-term, organized, systematic observation	Mathematical description and quantitative prediction
  Egyptian medicine	Interpretation of natural phenomena as signs of the will of the gods; practical know-how	empirical results of medical regimens, surgical techniques	Evaluation of case studies
  Presocratic natural philosophy (physics)	Search for divine first principles understood as theoretical causes	Limited appeals to ordinary, individual experience	Logic
  Pythagoreans	Numbers as the divine causes of nature	Numerical diagrams and occasional experiments	Geometrical proofs and contemplations of numbers
  Plato	Forms as the divine causes of nature	Shadows, reflections, pointers	Mathematics, philosophy
  Aristotle	Natural things contain within themselves the causes of their own motions (or changes). These causes are material, formal, efficient and final.	Extensive experience, observation, experiment	Logical syllogisms

   

   

   

	HSCI 3013. History of Science to 17th century Kerry Magruder, Instructor, 2004-14 Brent Purkaple, TA Report typos or broken links	Go to this course at Janux spellcheck.net | wordcounter.net Many thanks to the pedagogical model developed in Mythology and Folklore and other online courses by Laura Gibbs, which have been an inspiration for this course.	Academic Calendar
	This course is currently undergoing major reconstruction to bring it into alignment with the new version of the course at Janux