An approach to Aristotle's physics: with particular attention to the role of his manner of writing

308 Pages·1998·0.74 MB·English

by  David Bolotin

An Approach to Aristotle's Physics : With
title: Particular Attention to the Role of His
Manner of Writing
author: Bolotin, David.; Aristotle.
publisher: State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin: 0791435520
print isbn13: 9780791435526
ebook isbn13: 9780585092058
language: English
Aristotle.--Physics, Physics--Early works to
subject 1800, Greek language--Style, Philosophy,
Ancient.
publication date: 1998
lcc: Q151.A8B65 1998eb
ddc: 530
Aristotle.--Physics, Physics--Early works to
subject: 1800, Greek language--Style, Philosophy,
Ancient.
Page iii
An Approach to Aristotle's Physics
With Particular Attention to the Role of His Manner of
Writing
DAVID BOLOTIN
State University of New York Press
Page iv
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 1998 State University of New York
All rights reserved
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Marketing by Fran Keneston
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For information, address State University of New York
Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bolotin, David, 1944-
An approach to Aristotle's physics : with particular attention to
the role of his manner of writing / David Bolotin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-3551-2 (hardcover: alk. paper). ISBN 0-7914-3552-0
(pbk.)
1. Aristotle. Physics. 2. PhysicsEarly works to 1800.
3. Greek languageStyle. 4. Philosophy, Ancient. I. Aristotle.
Physics. II. Title.
Q151.A8B65 1997
530dc21 96-38143
CIP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Page v
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 On the Principles of the Natural Beings 13
Chapter 2 The Question of Teleology 31
Chapter 3 On Continuity and Infinite Divisibility 53
Chapter 4 The Question of Place 77
Chapter 5 The Doctrine of Weight and Lightness 115
Chapter 6 On Aristotle's Manner of Writing 149
Index 155
Page vii
Acknowledgments
The bulk of this work was completed during the academic years
199194, while I was on an extended leave of absence from St. John's
College. I am grateful to St. John's for granting me this leave of
absence, and also to the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the
National Endowment for the Humanities for the financial support that
made it possible for me to accept it.
Chapter 2 is a slightly revised version of a lecture that I delivered at
the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung in Munich on June 2, 1992.
Chapter 3 is a slightly revised and shortened version of my previously
published "Continuity and Infinite Divisibility in Aristotle's Physics,"
Ancient Philosophy 13 (1993): 32340.
Page 1
Introduction
Modern natural science emerged in the seventeenth century in explicit
opposition to Aristotle's natural science, that branch of his philosophy
that he called "physics." That the earth is not at rest in the center of
the universe, but a mere satellite orbiting around the sun; that the stars
and the planets are inanimate bodies made up of the same elements as
bodies here on earth, and that their motions are subject to the same
laws; that natural motion does not tend toward ends or fulfillments,
but that every body in motion would continue indefinitely in a straight
line if it were not for the action of external forces; all these and other
such fundamental notions were regarded from the beginning as
contradicting key doctrines of Aristotle's physics. The reigning belief
in the truth of Aristotle's physics was the chief intellectual obstacle to
the acceptance of the new science. And in the light of the success that
this science has since enjoyed, it has generally been assumed that
Aristotle's physics has been refuted, and that it is thus of little
importance except as an object of historical inquiry.
Recently, however, a widespread and growing critique of modern
science has led to a renewed interest in Aristotle's physics as
something that can still teach us about the natural world.
1 This is not to say that any of the conclusions of modern science have
been simply rejected in favor of the opposing Aristotelian claims.
Even in the one most conspicuous instance in which a conclusion of
modern science is rejectednamely, the Darwinian claim about
evolution and its causesthose who deny that the origin of species can
be explained on Darwinian principles alone do not propose a return to
the Aristotelian doctrine that the species are eternal. And in any case,
the rejection of the Darwinian account of evolution stems mostly from
older and different sources than does the prevailing critique of modern
science. More typically, we see an acceptance of the results of this
science, combined, however, with a criticism of the ordinary
interpretation of these
Page 2
results; and this criticism has led to the view that modern and
Aristotelian science, when both are rightly understood, are not
opposed, but complementary to one another. The criticism to which I
am referring begins by arguing that modern scientists themselves and
other interpreters of their results are wrong to claim to have seen
beneath the apparent world of our experience in the direction of its
true or underlying being. For instance, Sir Arthur Eddington has
frequently been taken to task for claiming that his solid and familiar
writing table was largely illusory, and that the only table "really there"
was a second, "scientific table," consisting "mostly of emptiness,"
through which ''numerous electrical charges [are] running about with
great speed.
2 The critics of such views acknowledge that modern science has
succeeded in relating the particular events and particular objects of
our experience to more general laws, laws that involve entities not
accessible to direct experience. But it is denied that these laws or
these indirectly accessible entities provide the answers as to what the
world, or the events and objects of our primary experience, really are.
To the argument that the beings as we think that we perceive them are
merely relative to our own way of perceiving, it has been replied that
the new entities disclosed by modern science are themselves relative
to a sophisticated mathematical technique, and that this technique is
dependent for whatever meaningfulness it has on a prior grasp of the
world as it appears directly.3 It is thus argued that only philosophy, as
distinct from modern science, can tell us what the world most truly is.
Now the philosophic inquiry that is called for by this critique is not
traditional metaphysics: it is not an attempt to explain the world in
terms of eternal and absolutely first causes.4 Indeed, this critique
renounces such an attempt as being incapable of success or even
meaningless. What is called for, rather, apart from reflection on the
acts of awareness, is a careful examination of the world as it appears