vol 2: Synopsis
part II: A brief history of dynamics
page 10: Aristotle
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... to restore theology to the mainstream of science
Aristotle
(384-322 bc)
We begin the story of dynamics with Aristotle's Physics, written about 350 bc. Aristotle Many of the earliest known writers, like Parmenides and Zeno and down through Plato held that 'real' reality was eternal and immutable. Parmenides, Zeno, Plato Motion was somehow second class. Aristotle made the first big intellectual step away from that position toward the modern view (pioneered by Heracleitus) that all is dynamics constrained only by local consistency or 'reasonableness'. Heracleitus
In the network picture proposed on this site, the specific difference between ourselves and other animals is the richness of our communication. Somewhere in our development, we discovered combinatorial language, and became able to communicate complex ideas in long and complex utterances. Nowak Some time after that, we discovered writing, the ability to encode dynamic speech in static strings of symbols like these.
The extant written sources begin about 700 bc, and already two extreme positions are in evidence. For Parmenides reality is motionless; For Heracleitus, everything is in flux. Parmenides' argument that reality is eternal and immutable has convinced many people (down to the present day) that the moving world of experience is illusory, a facade behind which eternal reality is hidden.
This ideas was developed most thoroughly by Plato, Aristotle's teacher, child of the ruling class and literary genius.
Aristotle is regarded as a 'common sense' philosopher. He does not question the reality of the world, or the truth of the senses, but takes the world as it is, as practical people must. For him change was part of reality.
The Physics is concerned with change in all its forms, local motion and the changes involved in burning, growing, cooking and so on. Aristotle's analysis tells him that there must be two principles of change. One, matter, stays the same through change: the same clay might be a cup or a saucer. The other, form (cup shaped, saucer shaped), comes in many varieties, which can replace one another in the same matter. Steel that once had the form of a sword may, through the work of a blacksmith, take on the form of a ploughshare.
Physics deals with the nature of changing matter. Aristotle sees more to the world than matter. He believes that the mind we use to reflect on nature is neither material nor tangible, yet certainly part of the world. Although mind and matter are not the same, there are nevertheless close connections between them, for it is through our material senses that we collect the information that occupies our minds. This distinction between mind and matter has remained with us until recent times.
Aristotle moved from physics to metaphysics by developing a more abstract version of the matter and form paradigm, the theory of potency and act. Potency is a feature of something than could exist; act a feature of something that does exist. It was axiomatic to Aristotle that a potential cannot realize itself and must be brought to actuality by some agent other than itself.
In order to explain the moving world and prevent an infinite regress of agents, Aristotle postulated his famous 'unmoved mover' which occupies an outer sphere of the heavens surrounding earth.
In early Christian times, Platonic thought dominated and theologians modelled God using Plato's theory of ideas or forms. The medieval rediscovery of Aristotle led to the unmoved mover becoming identified with God. This model of god is used in the first proof for the existence of god an Aquinas' Summa Theologiae.
Further reading
Books
| Aquinas, Thomas, and Kenelm Foster, Sylvester Humphries (translators), Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, Dumb Ox Books 1959 A translation of William of Moerbeke's latin text of Aristotle's On the Soul (a brilliant little treatise on life written 2300 years ago) together with a latin commentary by the Angelic Doctor Thomas Aquinas. Here is an ancient foundation for the Christian belief in the immortality of the soul. Amazon back |
| Aristotle, and (translated by H Tredennick and G Cyril Armstrong), Metaphysics X-XIV, Oeconomica and Magna Moralia, Harvard University Press, ; William Heinemann Ltd. 1977 Jacket: 'Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 B.C., was the son of a medical Doctor, Nichomachus of Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there 367-347; spent three years at the court of former pupil Hermeias in Asia Minor and married Pythias a relation of his; after some time in Mitylene, in 343-2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be the tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander, and had other pupils. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of 'Peripatetics'), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea and died there in 322.' Amazon back |
| Aristotle, and (translated by H Tredennick), Metaphysics I-IX, Harvard University Press, William Heinemann 1980 Introduction: "[Aristotle] felt that there must be a regular system of sciences, each concerned with a different aspect of reality. At the same time it was only reasonable to suppose that there was a supreme science which was more ultimate, more exact, more truly Wisdom than the others. The discussion of ths science - Wisdom, Primary Philosophy or Theology, as it is variously called - and of its scope, forms the subject of the |
| Aristotle, and (translated by P H Wickstead and F M Cornford), Physics books V-VIII, Harvard University Press,William Heinemann 1980 Introduction: 'Simplicius tells us that Books I - IV of the Physics were referred to as the books Concerning the Principles, while Books V - VIII were called On Movement. The earlier books have, in fact, defined the things which are subject to movement (the contents of the physical world) and analyzed certain concepts - Time, Place and so forth - which are involved in the occurrence of movement.' Book V is a further intoduction to the detailed analysis in Books VI - VIII. Book VI deals with continuity, Book VII is an introductory study for Book VIII, which brings us to the conclusion that all change and motionin the unvierse are ultimately caused by a Prime Mover which is itself unchanging and unmoved and which has neither magnitude nor parts, but is spiritual and not in space. Amazon back |
| Aristotle, and (translated by P H Wickstead and F M Cornford), Physics books I-IV, Harvard University Press, William Heinemann 1980 Introduction: 'The title "Physics" is misleading. .. "Lectures on Nature" the alternative title found in editions of the Greek text, is more enlightening. ... The realm of Nature, for Aristotle, includes all things that move and change ... . Thus the ultimate "matter" which, according to Aristotle, underlies all the elementary substances must be studied, in its changes at least, by the Natural Philosopher. And so must the eternal heavenly spheres of the Aristotelean philosophy, insofar as they themselves move of are the cause of motion in the sublunary world.' Amazon back |
| Aristotle, and (translated by W S Hett), On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On Breath (translated by W S Hett) , Harvard University Press (USA) ; William Heinemann Ltd (UK) 1975 'What the mind thinks must be in it in the same sense as letters are on a tablet which bears no actual writing; this is just what happens in the case of the mind.' page 169 (Book III, chapter 4, 429b32) Amazon back |
| Williams, Brian, Aristotle, Heinemann Library 2002 Yet to be published Amazon back |
Papers
| Nowak, Martin A and Joshua B Plotkin and Vincent A A Jansen, "The evolution of syntactic communication", Nature, 404, 6777, 30 March 2000, page 495-498. Letters to Nature: 'Animal communication is typically non-syntactic, which means that signals refer to whole situations. Human language is syntactic, and signals consist of discrete components that have their own meaning. Syntax is requisite for taking advantage of combinatorics, that is 'making infinite use of finite means'. ... Here we present a model for the population dynamics of language evolution, define the basic reproductive ratio of words and calculate the maximum size of a lexicon.'. back |
Links
| Aristotle Index of /Aristotle Index of /Aristotle: The works of Aristotle online. back |
| Burnet Parmenides of Elea: The Poem back |
| Garth Kemerling Aristotle 'Born at Stagira in northern Greece, Aristotle was the most notable product of the educational program devised by Plato; he spent twenty years of his life studying at the Academy. When Plato died, Aristotle returned to his native Macedonia, where he is supposed to have participated in the education of Philip's son, Alexander (the Great). He came back to Athens with Alexander's approval in 335 and established his own school at the Lyceum, spending most of the rest of his life engaged there in research, teaching, and writing.' back |
| Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy Aristotle - Overview 'Aristotle was born in 384 BCE. at Stagirus, a Greek colony and seaport on the coast of Thrace. His father Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced his life. While he was still a boy his father died. At age 17 his guardian, Proxenus, sent him to Athens, the intellectual center of the world, to complete his education. He joined the Academy and studied under Plato, attending his lectures for a period of twenty years.' back |
| J J O'Connor and E F Robertson Aristotle 'According to a tradition which arose about two hundred and fifty years after his death, which then became dominant and even today is hardly disputed, Aristotle in these same years lectured - not once, but two or three times, in almost every subject - on logic, physics, astronomy, meteorology, zoology, metaphysics, theology, psychology, politics, economics, ethics, rhetoric, poetics; and that he wrote down these lectures, expanding them and amending them several times, until they reached the stage in which we read them. However, still more astounding is the fact that the majority of these subjects did not exist as such before him, so that he would have been the first to conceive of and establish them, as systematic disciplines.' cited from F Grayeff, Aristotle and his school (London, 1974). back |
| John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy Heracleitus of Ephesus: Discussion back |
| mathacademy.com Zeno's paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles 'Zeno of Elea (circa 450 b.c.) is credited with creating several famous paradoxes, but by far the best known is the paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles. (Achilles was the great Greek hero of Homer's The Illiad.) It has inspired many writers and thinkers through the ages, notably Lewis Carroll and Douglas Hofstadter, who also wrote dialogues involving the Tortoise and Achilles.' back |
| University of California Museum of Paleontology Aristotle 'Mine is the first step and therefore a small one, though worked out with much thought and hard labor. You, my readers or hearers of my lectures, if you think I have done as much as can fairly be expected of an initial start. . . will acknowledge what I have achieved and will pardon what I have left for others to accomplish.' back |
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