It is known that our modern sciences are built on the Aristotelian system of philosophy. Even earlier than that it is known, that greek culture had a complete and sound system of scientific disciplines. Regarding our chaotic states at todays university departments, wouldn't it be nice to return to the roots of all true science? In such case, would it be again possible to educate geniuses knowledgable in all the scientific disciplines? How to integrate new knowledge and scientific disciplines that did not exist at that time? Is king Salomons saying true, that everything returns and everything that is was already there before?
1) Aristotelian philosophy certainly influenced modern scientific (indeed, academic) thought. However, Galileo found himself in trouble primarily because the scholastics had adopted Aristotelian philosophy and adapted (or incorporated) it into their theology, such that once Galileo challenged certain aspects of Aristotelian thought these were seen as challenges to Church doctrine. The greatest, most important, and most fundamental (in terms of the emergence of the sciences) of Galileo's works concern his challenge to Aristotelian mechanics. One of the things that made this remarkable work so essential is that it seems Galileo didn't just test his ideas, but applied Aristotelian logical analysis to a systematic, empirical study of the natural world which Aristotle regarded as largely (or wholly) pointless/unnecessary Thus one of the most important reasons to understand and to be familiar with Aristotle is to understand why the Greeks (and in particular Aristotle) came closer to science than culture before the beginning of Western early modern natural philosophy.
2) Under a broad interpretation of "science" that is largely useless, various cultures can be and have been evaluated as to the extent of their culture's "scientific" accomplishments. Thus we learn that the greatest engineers before the early modern period were the Chinese, that the Greek's mathematical limitations (geometry) was far surpassed by the development of algebra by Arabic culture, and even various European medieval innovations (such as rotating fields and leaving one to fallow) were somehow "scientific".
In truth, science emerged once. The literature on this is vast:
Cohen, H. F. (2010). How Modern Science Came into the World: Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century Breakthrough. Amsterdam University Press.
Falcon, A. (2005). Aristotle and the Science of Nature Unity without Uniformity. Cambridge University Press.
Duchesne, R. (2011). The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Studies in Critical Social Sciences Vol. 28). Brill.
Gaukroger, S. (2001). Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Gaukroger, S. (2006). The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685. Oxford University Press.
Gower, B. (1997). Scientific Method: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction. Routledge.
Roberts, R. H. (2002). Religion, Theology, and the Human Sciences. Cambridge University Press.
Westfall, R. S. (1977). The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science). Cambridge University Press.
And of course
The Cambridge History of Science (particularly Vol. III onwards), the popular and academic accounts of science by Conant, the popular (and problematic but not without merit) vast amount of literature on the relationship between Christianity as it existed in a particular time and locale (early modern Europe) and the development of science (the sociologist Rodney Stark has made a bit of a name for himself here), even the literature on the modern origins of the concept of religion. The list goes on ("of the writing of books there is no end").
Part of understanding the "science" of Aristotle is part of really understanding the difference between "science" as it is practiced/exists vs. as it is discussed in works like Russo, L. (2004). Russo, L. (1997). La Rivoluzione Dimenticata: Il pensiero scientifico greco e la scienza moderna (Terza ed.). Feltrinelli.
3) Aristotle's "biology" or biological work has been emphasized for various reasons and in various ways (and also altered). Meanwhile, for something so basic as motion he proposed a theory he could have proved wrong then but that held scientific progress back for ~1,000 years.
4) No single author presents us with such a systematic development of a logical framework of the kind necessary not just to evaluate arguments but to develop and test theories. Aristotle's failure to appreciate empiricism is important not only in understanding the nature of the sciences but understanding how scientific thought simultaneously involves elements that are universal among humans and those that are virtually universally alien, highly counter-intuitive, and must be taught.
i definitely think that revisiting the Aristotelian thoughts are necessary some needs to be checked and still the base of most of the western science is based on his study. His biological study was eminent. Revisiting it might bring in some great new insights.
1) Aristotelian philosophy certainly influenced modern scientific (indeed, academic) thought. However, Galileo found himself in trouble primarily because the scholastics had adopted Aristotelian philosophy and adapted (or incorporated) it into their theology, such that once Galileo challenged certain aspects of Aristotelian thought these were seen as challenges to Church doctrine. The greatest, most important, and most fundamental (in terms of the emergence of the sciences) of Galileo's works concern his challenge to Aristotelian mechanics. One of the things that made this remarkable work so essential is that it seems Galileo didn't just test his ideas, but applied Aristotelian logical analysis to a systematic, empirical study of the natural world which Aristotle regarded as largely (or wholly) pointless/unnecessary Thus one of the most important reasons to understand and to be familiar with Aristotle is to understand why the Greeks (and in particular Aristotle) came closer to science than culture before the beginning of Western early modern natural philosophy.
2) Under a broad interpretation of "science" that is largely useless, various cultures can be and have been evaluated as to the extent of their culture's "scientific" accomplishments. Thus we learn that the greatest engineers before the early modern period were the Chinese, that the Greek's mathematical limitations (geometry) was far surpassed by the development of algebra by Arabic culture, and even various European medieval innovations (such as rotating fields and leaving one to fallow) were somehow "scientific".
In truth, science emerged once. The literature on this is vast:
Cohen, H. F. (2010). How Modern Science Came into the World: Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century Breakthrough. Amsterdam University Press.
Falcon, A. (2005). Aristotle and the Science of Nature Unity without Uniformity. Cambridge University Press.
Duchesne, R. (2011). The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Studies in Critical Social Sciences Vol. 28). Brill.
Gaukroger, S. (2001). Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Gaukroger, S. (2006). The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685. Oxford University Press.
Gower, B. (1997). Scientific Method: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction. Routledge.
Roberts, R. H. (2002). Religion, Theology, and the Human Sciences. Cambridge University Press.
Westfall, R. S. (1977). The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science). Cambridge University Press.
And of course
The Cambridge History of Science (particularly Vol. III onwards), the popular and academic accounts of science by Conant, the popular (and problematic but not without merit) vast amount of literature on the relationship between Christianity as it existed in a particular time and locale (early modern Europe) and the development of science (the sociologist Rodney Stark has made a bit of a name for himself here), even the literature on the modern origins of the concept of religion. The list goes on ("of the writing of books there is no end").
Part of understanding the "science" of Aristotle is part of really understanding the difference between "science" as it is practiced/exists vs. as it is discussed in works like Russo, L. (2004). Russo, L. (1997). La Rivoluzione Dimenticata: Il pensiero scientifico greco e la scienza moderna (Terza ed.). Feltrinelli.
3) Aristotle's "biology" or biological work has been emphasized for various reasons and in various ways (and also altered). Meanwhile, for something so basic as motion he proposed a theory he could have proved wrong then but that held scientific progress back for ~1,000 years.
4) No single author presents us with such a systematic development of a logical framework of the kind necessary not just to evaluate arguments but to develop and test theories. Aristotle's failure to appreciate empiricism is important not only in understanding the nature of the sciences but understanding how scientific thought simultaneously involves elements that are universal among humans and those that are virtually universally alien, highly counter-intuitive, and must be taught.
Dear colleague,
We can only show that Aristotle is still relevant, if we can show that the conceptual frameworks of contemporary sciences implicitly still use Aristotelian categories, for instance fundamental distinctions between nature and technology (relevant for fields like biomimicry), between matter and form or living nature and non-living nature (relevant for conceptualizations in biology). If we acknowledge our implicit use of Aristotelian vocabulary that implicitly 'steers' the research in these fields, this is the first step to reflect on this fundamental conceptions in these scientific fields. I guess that it is the task of contemporary philosophers to point at these type of dependencies and assumptions, for instance based on recent scientific publications in the field.
Though Aristotle may still be relevant to some areas of thought, such as ethics for example, Aristotelian science has not been relevant to science since at least the 17th century. In fact, what we call modern science was predicated precisely on the rejection of the Aristotelian paradigm. Even the medieval Scholastics had to revise Aristotle by supplementing his theory of the four element. The theory of the four elements and their manifest qualities had such limited explanatory power that the Scholastics had to introduce the notion of 'occult' or non-manifest qualities to account for magnetism, etc. As well, Aristotelian science was based on entirely qualitativel theories and explanations, but Galileo and others 'mathematized' nature, that is, they required that theoretical hypotheses be formulated in mathematical terms from which empirical consequences could be derived and tested. The introduction of quantification into the scientific method also accounted for Galileo's distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Kepler advanced astronomy by rejecting the Aristotelian (and Copernican) idea that the planets move in circular orbits and favored elliptical orbits instead. Additionally, scientists like Robert Boyle and other mechanical corpuscularians advanced chemistry, pneumatics, mechanics, and hydrostatics by rejecting Aristotelian notions such as the theory of substantial forms. Chemistry was further advanced by rejecting the Aristotelian notion of the four elements, since Aristotle wished to explain all changes in nature as involving the acquisition or loss of one of these four. Etienne Geoffroy's table of the elements, which was based more on early modern alchemy and chymistry than on Aristotle, was one of the first major steps in the direction of the 18th century Chemical Revolution. Theoretical science, in general, was advanced by rejecting the Aristotelian anthropomorphic tendency to explain all natural phenomena by analogy with human models. Aristotle was a great philosopher and Aristotelian science dominated Western culture until the 16th century. However, the Scientific Revolution essentially came about through a complete rejection of Aristotelian science and of its fundamental assumptions, because these were no longer progressive.
As i see, at least in Stefans and Marinas exposition, there seems to be a strong tendency to declassify Aristotelian concepts as being not competitive for our days. Maybe a lot of scientists fear to loose their (paid) jobs, if they would not be able to sell their well-guarded secrets about scientific symbols to the world or do as if they want to sell in order to take high taxes from the passers-by. What an egoistic and wicked world we are living in!
No. It's useless. He was wrong on 99,99% of his ideas. Anyhow he was the greatest among all Ancient (and even Modern) Western thinkers. A great mind.
Nevertheless, you can choose any model to fit your data...so it is possible. As talk about quantum physics and hexagrams....
I think what is really missing in our days and independent of Aristotle, is the conception of Ethics in Science (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics etc.). I could not say Ethics in Science is missing but is certainly repressed. It is repressed because two major elements of Science – the freedom and creativity are not ‘in phase’ with the general conception of today’s established needs. We are living in a world of “imaging” rather in a word of “moral responsibilities”. Aristotle gave careful consideration to the aspects of human nature involved in acting and accepting moral responsibility.
Writing a paper with wrong data or working in “Wrong Models” for Cancer Therapy (very often in R&D and Academics) because Money have been engaged in this direction, is in my opinion not Ethical and therefore not Scientific. There are many of examples that we could summarize. Still it is not Moral to ask for a secret letter of recommendation for a Scientific Job or for any Job. What means “Secret” in Science? Science is by definition a step to the truth. We can certainly present more examples of “Non Scientific Actions” in our short life of modern scientist. In fact by dealing with all these “social elements”, we repress the beauty of Freedom, the beauty of Ethics and the necessity of Creativity, so what we do is to reproduce an “image” that we have been selected for. It is like a ‘wrong’ 3D-printing process. That is not Scientific and this is the problem in our days, we are acting in a scientific system that is reproducing pre-selected images that decrease the space to the Creativity. Vassilis.
I think Aristotle's (and Plato's as well) approach exists in modern learning, and its role strengthens due to vast changes in science, knowledge and information distribution. We all (not students only) should learn how to gather, analyze facts, and make decisions based on facts.
If we look on the question in a philosophical aspect i was impressed by Roger Penrose's books:
The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and The Laws of Physics
Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness
as Mr. Penrose shows the actuality of Plato's "ideas" in modern physics and mathematics. by the way i found the similar thoughts in Immanuel Kant's main work" Critique of Pure Reason".
Dear Thomas,
Dear All,
It is difficult to discuss on the impact or the lack of Aristotelian philosophy on present university structure without thoroughly knowing the teaching of Aristotle as well as the history of science. I stress teaching of philosophy has been neglected these days and many philosophiae doctors have no idea on philosophy. Regarding the present chaos or confusion in higher education (which is a fact), the solution may not be a going back to structures of ancient times but one should prepare a suitable structure of the present day as we use all the pragmatic values of the past. We should do as the Hegelian dialectics suggests: with the help of thesis and antithesis we should find the synthesis.
@Pardis: I think you should never underestimate the universality of the philosophic teachings of Aristotle. He also wrote a book about logic in sciences and therefore he knows also to deal with "adverse", "inverse", "wicked", "perverted" and finally "mathematical".. modes of argumentations..
@Andras: I think that your view is slightly too pessimistic or even nihilist. Recently, one of the oldest universities in the world, the university of Vienna celebrated its 650th anniversary and therefore set up a nice series on articles about its history and evolution on its webpage (unfortunately only in german). There was one nice article about how the Jesuits took over university teaching in the 16th century, competing with secular professors. A big fight about power in the unviersity arose and finally Jesuit professors were treated like students by the secular professors of the university. However, philosophy and theology as well as the liberal arts (grammar, rethorics, dialectis, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music) belonged mostly in the domain of church, thus the courses on those subjects were subjugated by a secular and less religious university law/philosophy. Nevertheless, old teachings are not lost and still nicely preserved for usage in the libraries and archives of the church. Only you have to learn church law CIC (not so big book, and not so hard to understand) and bible little bit and you can make your way.
https://www.univie.ac.at/650/aktuelles-ueberblick/jubilaeums-news/
@Pardis: i am viewing the things more like a computer scientist, mathematician and bible scholar, thus being little bit blind for the pharmaceutical science interacting with our everday "scientific" reality. To me (because of my personal experience with pharmacology) i don't attribute important improvements in my life to the medicines i took. A detailed logical analysis suggests that the time for medicines to take effect could equally well be the time to become healthy anyway also without swallowing heavy medicines. As i am really a fan of those cute chemical 2D/3D formulas showing so many important features of some medicine, i still have concluded for now to see the main effect of medicines in the benedictions forwarded and transmitted by the producer of the medicine and the accompanying description of it than in any chemical substances acting in a favorable way to the diseases development. But still i would also like to know more about pharmacology and medicine and chemical philosophy of drugs and medicines. For me as a mathematician, stochiometry seems to be the mathematical essence of chemical reactions, but still that does not explain the true nature of the chemical element's symbols (which would be my main interest to extract a deeper meaning out of chemical formulas). I would very much like to see the deeper connections between Leukipp and Demokrit and the period table of elements that we use today and also the more detailed models of elementary particle physics.
The short answer is "yes". For the book length defence see my Metaphysics from a Biological Point of View.
@Pardis: I did not study analytical, structural and synthetic chemistry in detail until now, but i am really puzzled how chemists (and for the case pharmaceutic chemists) derive their 2D/3D formulas from their structural analysis. To me (as a scientist) it seems more attractive to deal with mysterious and cute chemical formulas instead of doing word magic for conjuring healing powers by the further use of talismans. Still this "magical" view seems to be also competitive in this case i suspect. For example, if you look at different types of chemical structural formulas like Lewis formula, plane formulas for organic compounds, formulas of stereo chemistry, all of them carry mathematical information as well not only the stochiometric part and basic molecul geometry. So the question that i want to ask in case of pharmaceutics and chemistry in general is: What is the essence of a chemical substance? How is its reproducibility (synthetically or by extraction) being granted after its discovery? Why do we think we can rely on the quality of such reproduced (synthesized) substances in all the cases we apply them (research, medicine, chemical industrial technology,..)?
ok. i have heard only of popper, but this method of falsification, i would consider an everyday argument in mathematics and philosophy of different religions, maybe even an outgrowth of Aristotelian standard logic...
So, summarizing, you would say, that pharmacy is much more than just the chemical formulas of the ingredients of one pill, be it the medicine itself or some carrier substances. That helps me to align my thinking about this topic to a satisfying level. I think the german word medikament (meaning medicine) is consisting of two word, one of them being the latin "mens" indicating that medicine is all about thinking and brain, not so much about swallowing ugly substances.
In terms of pharmacy there is also the role of placebo to be considered. Simple genetic variation another. The role of alcohol dehydrogenase, for example, is specific. It's absence in some oriental individuals makes a simple tipple toxic. The reason I like Popper is that he states that all theories are man made and therefore at some point will fail. The best theories fail early and therefore are of limited use to mankind but even the great ones fail at the limit. In addition he declares that the "good scientist" will specify under which limits they will accept that their own theory has failed. The "bad scientist" will either have such large limits or once shown that the specified limits have failed then start to produce variations to accommodate the failure of the theory, rather than look for a better theory.
So taking a pharmaceutical example if I declare I have discovered the elixir of life. That it will increase longevity by 50 years
I think Andrew M's points above are trenchant. I might expand by saying that all thought is human thought. It does not exist as some sort of abstract set of propositions fundamentally reflective of reality. Books such as Flatland, Greene's The Elegant Universe, and How We Know What Isn't So by Gilovich, as well as the "heuristics and biases" literature all highlight the limitations of humans when it comes to formulating propositions and testing them against reality. Aristotle largely remained within the limitations of human conceptualization, so over-appreciating it that as Andrew notes he felt empirical study was "pointless and unnecessary." Much of his argument relies on intuition - in essence, "it's obvious that ..." Science is still part of human thought, but recognizes that reality may not, in toto, be intuitively comprehensible by humans. It devises "work-arounds" to try to circumvent human limitations, so that, for instance, we have mathematical models of "reality" that have more than the 4 (3 Cartesian coordinates plus time) within which people can readily conceptualize. As A notes, these are "universally [to humans - JHW] alien (and) highly-counter-intuitive." We also recognize the limitations of the observer and try to eliminate these as much as possible by means such as double-blind medication trials.
Your final sentence in your initial question (“everything returns and everything that is was already there before”) is of an Aristotelian nature. Practically speaking, it's unanswerable, except, perhaps, on some intuitive or logical basis. It gives us no clue as to what to really expect when we examine the world assiduously. Try answering it yourself, empirically, and you will see why it's not science. What do you mean by "everything?" How could we know that it "was already there before"? Certainly, you can find plenty of instances where something recurs, seeming to validate the proposition, but, if something doesn't seem to have been there before, presumably it would invalidate it. But if you judge it to be true on intuitive grounds (it makes sense) you will simply say, you just haven't looked enough. One might say that "it makes sense, but it isn't true." Much of Aristotle "makes sense," too but it's not true. I often joke that what someone says "only makes sense," meaning that's all it does - it's not true.
for some strange reason only part of my answer has been posted twice....That it will increase longevity by 50 years for everyone +/- 5 years. This can be tested and may be of use to mankind. If I state that it will increase longevity for 12 years for most people +/- 5 years it can be tested but even looking at the limits suggests it not be much use to mankind. If a case falsifies the first theory. The "good" scientist would start looking for a better theory or elixir. The "bad" scientist starts qualifying the theory with statements such as - this was an exception, they din't take it for long enough; started too late in life or didn't take it the right way. So for me Popper's legacy is that he has given use a tool to both test a theory and a scientists credibility.
@Tardis Aaah- the paradigm shift. I agree. But I still like Popper's approach for judging research papers.
Overall - I find it fascinating that this discussion has generated so much "chatter". Just shows how, as thinkers, we are still searching for truth - just like Aristotle.
As Banchetti shows, Aristotle is now useless in physics and chemistry, but biologists and psychologists can still learn from him, as can political scientists. However, it is wrong to think that the problem with Aristotle was his lack of empiricism. He was very much an empiricist, but his empiricism never transcended common sense or became quantitative, so remained superficial. Having rejected Democritean atomism and Pythagorean numerology, he never appreciated the need for mathematics. For him, science was all about things and their observable qualities or powers. And though he believed in observation, the uses of experimentation escaped him. Here Archimedes set a better example for the later Galileo.
Max is, I believe, technically correct, but the problem with Aristotle from a modern day perspective is the extent to which non-empirical, rational, and metaphysical conceptual statements predominate, as well as conclusions based on these ideas, that turn out to be obviously wrong and could be shown to be so by even simple observations of the type he seems to value. It is instructive to see how easily one can be mistaken - and to "know what isn't so," as Gilovich writes - when one takes either observation or theorizing too far, and does not recognize that neither is as simple and irrefutable as it sounds. We need to build in safeguards, as much as we can, to avoid the traps human nature lays for us. The "heuristics and biases" literature helps a great deal with this; Wittgenstein made forays into the problems with "reason" but unfortunately was not able to produce something systematic.
No,Aristotelian philosophy has completely diregarded experimental verifications of so called logical deductions. In fact Galileo has to suffer a lot because of this. So if at all one wants to mention this philosphy then its fallacy should also be emphasized.
@Rasbindu: Maybe Galileo had to suffer because he came up with some completely new approach and he had to defend his idea against all kinds of attacks. But not only scientists like him had to suffer "because of" church, also many martyrs of catholic church are there who founded new types of (monastic) orders and had to struggle and suffer a lot. Still, the inheritage of such people is very precious and should always remind us of the sacrifice those people brought for us such that we now can make use of all their (technological) achievements.
Don't forget the Arabs....Ibn Rushid, Averroes and Ibn al Haitham known in the west as Alhazen.
Even the great work of Copernicus (1473-1543) can be mirrored by an almost exact replica in an earlier work by Sharaf Al din Al Tusi an astronomer working in Iran 1213.
Aristotle's rationality mixed with Christian theology provided the drive for curiosity that inspired medieval science (Bacon,Ockham,...) and also its own refutation during the XVII th Century Scientific Revolution. Aristotles thought is still currently important in Biology and in all sciences as the current paradigm based on Quantum Mechanics, acausal and probabilistic, at least in its Copenhagen interpretation is consistently being refuted. The emergent paradigm may be either a number theoretic one (a modern version of another ancient Greek -Pythagoras) or one resulting from a coherent cosmology of four dimensions (space time) retaining many of the Aristotelian important concepts like causality and potential!
We're way beyond 4 dimensions, now. I don't think modern physics is due to be replaced by Aristotle any time soon. You really believe this? What currently active physics programs are now looking back to the Greeks and discarding Einstein, Planck, or even Newton? Stanford? MIT? Cambridge? I don't think so.
Dear All, It seems to me that the discussion of this topic is largely misguided, in spite of the high reputation of the scholars that contributed. Most colleagues address the Thomist version of Aristotle that was popular in the Middle Ages - and correctly criticized by the masters of Modern Science. Nobody makes reference to Aristotle's originals and to the problems of translation and interpretation of his texts. Nobody recognizes his presence in contemporary discussions of Formal and Final Causes in the fields of biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, and philosophy of mind (see for instance the link below). Nobody recognizes his contribution for the very definition of Physics as the science of movement. Nobody recognizes his work on Biology, where he created the morphological method of taxonomy still in use. Nobody recognizes his anticipation of Modal Logics, and so on. Which Aristotle are you discussing?
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/8113
About being or not being in four dimensions, we already are with General Relativity. Quantum Mechanics is typically three dimensional and this is why it fails in Chemistry despite the admission of absurd assumptions like the corpuscular ondulatory duality, acausality (following nonlocality), and spin and molecular shape introduced "by hand",etc
This is very similar to the absurdity of a substance of negative weight in the theory of flogiston and with the epicycles of planetary motion in the ptolemaic model.I don't think all the universities of the world can protect indefinitely the current paradigm of Quantum Chemistry, unless the probabilistic Copenhagen version is abandoned,and a four dimensionality is assumed for which the spin occurs naturally and, totally abandoning the idea of the electron as point particle, considering it as a soliton.
Not denying the importance and even actuallity of the original Aristotles well explained
by Pereira Junior, I also enphasize the Tomist Aristotles who provided the will for Medieval Scientists to prepare the way for the XVII th century Sientific Revolution applying Aristotelean rationaliity to both reality and their own minds where they pursued their search for truth! This mixing of empiricism with rationality is in my opinion, the main reason for the clear superiority of western sience up to the Renaissance period, where other factors as the redicovery of the classics intervened.
@Andrew. Thanks for your enlightening contribution.
Just little bit off-topic, but i want to mention here, that besides of Aristotelian theory of science in our culture it seems to be neglected that from a Judaistic side the philosophy, theology and mystics of the old testament and specifically of the Torah and the oral law like written down in the Mishah and the Talmud and the "Mishneh Torah" of Rambam provides also a complete system for developing all science. There are even good books exposing the structure of the whole edifice of rabbinic literature. It is interesting to know that everthing of concern to the lives of Jews seems to be built on the contens of those law codices, thereby maintaining always simplicity and their roots to the true origin. That is admirable according to my view. And also Jesus Christ and St. Paul were Jews.
I would like to get a clarification about what is meant when you say “our modern sciences are built on the Aristotelian system of philosophy”. What do you mean by Aristotelian system of philosophy? How does this building-relation work? What are the main Aristotelian insights that are on the foundations of this building? At the same time, I wonder what might be called “old Aristotelian (metaphysical) models of science”? Does the parenthesis suggest that a model is Aristotelian just because it is metaphysical? And what “metaphysical” means?
Any way, (trying to answer your original question as an ancient philosopher focused on Aristotle’s theory of scientific demonstration), I believe that Aristotle’s reflections on science still have much to say to us. If we understand him better we surely can get insight into contemporary topics.
A good example is the relation between causation and predictability. An effect can be better predicted if one can map not only its sufficient conditions but the set of conditions that are sufficient AND necessary for the effect. Aristotle’s views on causation (Posterior Analytics I.13, II.16) are congenial to this: cause and effect imply each other (and from this it is also clear that the relation of causality is not reduced into anything like mutual entailment or coextensiveness between “cause” and “effect”).
@Lucas: I adopt the Platonic as well as the Aristotelian terms just because they seem to be more popular among scientists and also more accepted than let us say the corresponding religious system also proposed by Neoplatonism. As for Aristotle i think that the cause-effect relation you mention is a well-known viewpoint in biblical and related mystical system, but who cares? Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics contains maybe thoughts that also arise in the systems of gods in polytheistic religions like the triad Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, which is maybe the Hindu counterpart to the ethics of Aristotle. So this would be one way to connect our western thinking to eastern religions and rediscover their wisdom and philosophy in our own traditions.
About "who cares": contemporary science cares about predictability, but it's surprising that almost no scholar mentions Aristotle's view on causation as one that would promote predictability!
We have concepts like probabilty and other logical ways to prevent ourselves from seeing and hearing the TRUTH, but read this for information:
Repent or Perish Luke 13,1-5
13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
You should check D. C. Schindler's book THE CATHOLICITY OF REASON. He has a section wherein he discusses "...the modern notion of cause (it has been mostly limited to physical interactions—e.g., Hume) in contrast to the far wider appreciation among classical and medieval thinkers of final, efficient, and formal as well as material cause and the range of possibilities open to scientists as well as philosophers when they employ these in their investigations. Truth to tell, more recent scientific theories, in spite of contemporary philosophical ideologies to limit them otherwise, have gone beyond the confines of the epistemological restraint of modern systems that served as points of departure in the development of their psychological or epistemological paradigms. Stanislov Groff’s Beyond the Brain is an excellent example of this sort of evolution."
I put the section in quotes as it is from my book review for the Heythrop Journal.
Thanks, Stefan for this nice reference. I checked out and i will read it on occasion.
I think Thomas is suggesting this idea: some times people use a high level reasoning to solve or research a threat and this could be a mistake; because the high level language used could be more an obstacle than a help.
I think that very important in this topic is a case study of neo-scholastic reception of modern physics. The neo-scholastic philosopy of nature (based on Aristotle's one) could not deliver with the concepts of modern physics. We can not describe the properties of modern, mathematical theories of physics in the conceptual framework of neo-scholastic philosophy. Of course, there were many philosophers, who tried to do it, but the interpretations were not accepted by the physicists nor by the philosophers. Michael Heller stated that neo-scholastic interpretations of modern science were unsuccessful because the modern science created his own philosophy and do not need any external philosophy.
@Stefan: Indeed, the border between what is in the concern of technology or nature is not always clear. If we think of let us say bionics replacing human body parts quite satisfactorily by technological devices, then technology can be clearly seen to replace (at least partially) functions of nature. Thus one could argue, that the penetration of humans into the secrets of the universe by technological consideration can be as deep as one can imagine and natural sciences reconciliate (harmonically) with technological sciences. A general observationis that there is always ongoing discusion about how far technology should enter our lives, thus it seems more to be an issue of human consideration in how far we replace the complexity of nature by human models of nature.
Thomas,
I agree with others who argue that the answer to your question depends on what about what Aristotle said do we say gives insight into modern research topics.
I will do a cheat and say his philosophy greatly influenced Peirce, who modified Aristotelian logic to organize his system of pragmaticism, the logic of abduction, which I recently applied in a modern context to demonstrate idealized scientific inquiry.
Yet, so few have even heard of Peircean philosophy for various reasons (his demonstration given in “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” and "Additament") and my attempt to spread his philosophy in the following:
http://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_best_example_of_Peircean_abduction
As to whether Peirce was influenced by Aristotle can be gleaned from the following from Commens:
“There are in science three fundamentally different kinds of reasoning, Deduction (called by Aristotle {synagögé} or {anagögé}), Induction (Aristotle’s and Plato’s {epagögé}) and Retroduction (Aristotle’s {apagögé}, but misunderstood because of corrupt text, and as misunderstood usually translated abduction). Besides these three, Analogy (Aristotle’s {paradeigma}) combines the characters of Induction and Retroduction.”
and,
"[I intend] to make a philosophy like that of Aristotle, that is to say, to outline a theory so comprehensive that, for a long time to come, the entire work of human reason, in philosophy of every school and kind, in mathematics, in psychology, in the physical sciences, in history, in sociology, and in whatever other department there may be, shall appear as the filling up of its details. The first step toward this is to find simple concepts applicable to every subject [for example: one, two, three; sign, object, interpretant; chance, law, habit-taking or continuity”
~ from Brent, Charles Sanders Peirce, A Life
I think that's funny you've found just one model of science in Aristotle... But, well, you have to delete so much of aristotelian metaphysics to deal with both (aristotelian concerns about science and modern concerns) that it's just no more Aristotle, just aleatories elements.
I am not sure that modern science has anything to do with Aristotle. I see Aristotle as a good publisher who listed all the intuitive ideas people tend to be comfortable with and are easy to reach in an armchair. For me he contrasts with his predecessors - Parmenides, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, who focused on the way counterintuitive ideas can be shown to work better. And that is what science (and I think good phiosophy) is really about - showing that counterintuitive ideas can work better. Someone said that Aristotale's science was about things. Modern science has abolished things, as in Jams Ladyman's Every Thing Must Go. It has finally accepted the seventeenth century insight that science can only deal with causal relations (using causal in broadest terms).
So I think Aristotle is really an obstruction to good science if anything. Current science students should be taught not that they should think what everyone has thought for two thousand years but that they should criticise everything indiscriminately. Socrates seems to me a better teacher there.
For a long time, and thanks above all to the likes of Koyre' and Kuhn, we thought that looking back at Aristotle's metaphysics and natural philosophy was a waste of time. However, it turns out that it was not. Aristotle played an essential role in the emergence of both quantified medicine and "chymistry" (to use the Murdoch-Newman's definition) because it provided the rationale according to which it was possible to account for phenomena, such as life and chemical combination, which the Scientific Revolution denied or reduced to mechanism. Galileo, Santorio, and Harvey were and Aristotelians, and to some degree still the great Linnaeus was an Aristotelian. The idea of mechanism, or limiting the scientific enquiry to the mere causal link between parts - which many seem to praise here- was actually the intuition that held back the emergence of biology and chemistry as scientific disciplines for more than 400 years.
History of science is a very complicated matter, and reducing it to ideology is not helpful. The very set of events that seem to shape modern science, in fact, turn out to hinder its very development in other branches of knowledge.
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