Ancient Greek Religion And Science

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Aristotle

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acquiring knowledge begins with sense experience, from repeated sense experience follows memory and from memory, by a process of intuition, the experienced investigator is able to discern the universal featurs of things. knowledge is gained by a process that begins with experience.

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Aristotle

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To grasp the Universal one must do so through the individual.

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Aristotle

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if every object is constituted of form and matter, then A could make room for both change and stability by arguing that when an object undergoes change, its form changes, while its matter remains. Change is never open-ended but confined to narrow corridor connection parts of contrary qualities; ORDER is thus discerablie even in the midst of change.

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Aristotle

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Change involves passage from potentiality to actualitiy

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Aristotle

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World is orderly, in which things behave in predictable ways, because very natural object has a "nature" (an attribute primarily with form) that makes the object behave in its contemporary fashion.

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A

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ultimately all change and motion in the universe can be traced back to the nature of things
-doesnt apply to all objects produced artificially
-nature of a complex organism does not result from a summation or mixture of the natures of the constituent materials but is a unique nature characteristic of that organism as a unified whole

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A

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Aristotle did not preform controlled experiments
-experiment reveals nothing about natures that we cannot learn better in some other way

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A

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Aristotle scientific practice is to be explained as a method compatible to the world as he perceived it and well suited to the questions that interested him

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A

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Explanatory Conditions and Factors
-Formal Cause: form received by a thing
-Material Cause: matter underlying that form (persists throughout change)
-Efficient Cause: agency that brings about the change
-Final Cause: purpose served by the change

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A

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Final Cause - "PURPOSE"
many things cannot be understood without knowledge of purpose or function
final cause determines material cause (purpose determines the material of which the object must be made)

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A

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Role of Purpose in Aristotle's Universe:
-orderly, organized world, a world of purpose in which things develop towards ends determined by their natures
-emphasis on function

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A cosmology

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universe is eternal, no beginning

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A Cosmo

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if in the heavens we observe eternally unvarying circular motion, we can infer that the heaves are not made of the terrestrial elements but consist of an incorruptible fifth element, the quintessence (aether)

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A Cosmo

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Various substances that make up the cosmos totally fill it, leaving no empty space
various substances = earth, water, air, fire expressed in sensible qualities as ultimate building blocks ( hot-cold, wet-dry, light-heavy)

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A Cosmo

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light-heavy qualities explain why fire and air (light) ascend toward the periphery and water and earth (heavy) descend toward the center
light to heavy
fire
air
water
earth

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A

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Theory of Motion:
1. motion is never spontaneous- there is no motion without a mover
2. two types of motion
a. natural motion: motion toward the natural place of the moving body, mover is nature of the body
b. forced or violent motion: motion in any other direction, caused by external force

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A cosmos

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Heavens are composed of quintessence, incorruptible substance, possessing no contraries and incapable of change. being the most perfect of motions, uniform circular motion appears to have the capability of explaining the observed celestial cycles.

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A Cosmos

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Cause of movement in heavens:
-"Prime Mover" = unmoved mover for the planetary spheres
-living diety representing the highest good, wholly actualized, totally absorbed in self-contemplation, non spatial, separated from the spheres it moves, NOT AT ALL LIKE TRADITIONAL ANTHROPOMORPHIC GREEK GODS

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A Cosmos

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How does Prime Mover cause movement of spheres?
-prime mover is the object of desire for the celestial spheres, which endeavor to imitate its changeless perfection by assuming eternal, uniform circular motions

Front 20

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Mytho

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Hesiod gave the gods a genelogy and with homer defined their character and the functions over which they presided. It was though the joint influence of homer and hesiod that the 12 gods of mount olympus were chose from a plethora of local deities to become the gods of the greeks

Front 21

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mytho

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chasm between work of homer and hesoid and modern science:
theirs was a world of anthropomorphic deities interfering in human affairs and using humans as pawns in their own plots and intrigues.
-natural phenomena was personified and divinized
- sun and moon were conceived as dieties (offspring of the union of Theia and Hyperion)
- storms, lightening bolts, earthquakes were seen as might feats, willed by gods (not inevitable outcome of impersonal, natural forces)

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mytho

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Early in the 6th century Greek philosophy emerged, not as the replacement of mythology (for greek mythology continued to flourish) but as new, philosophical modes of thought alongside or sometimes mingled with, mythology.

In specifically evaluating the philosophys of Plato and Aristotle we see this mingling with mythology as well as departure from the mythology

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mytho

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early philosophers asked new set of questions and sought new type of answers-
personification of nature became less prominent and gods disappeared from their explanations of natural phenomena

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mytho

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philosophers theories and explanation excluded the gods. the explanations are entirely naturalistic (see example of this on page 26 with contrast between divine explanation of eclipse vs scientific)

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mytho

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world of philosophers was an orderly predictable world in which things behaved according to their natures. ordered worlds = kosmos
capricious world of divine intervention was being pushed aside making room for order and regularity (kosmos was being substituted for chaos)

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plato

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divine craftsman who bears the same relationship to the cosmos as the carpenter bears to his tables. (Demiurge) demiurge constructed the cosmos according to an idea or plan, so that the cosmos and everything in it are replicas (always imperfect) of eternal ideas or forms

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plato

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2 realms
1. realm of forms or ideas: contains perfect idea of every single thing
2. material realm: forms or ideas are imprefectly replicated

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plato

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forms are intangible, incorporeal, they have always existed, changless

true reality is located only in the realm of forms
forms exists primarily, corporeal objects (tangible world) is secondary

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plato

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true reality found in the common properties of classes of things, also this common property (idea or form) has objective, independent and prior existence

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plato

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to gain true knowledge we must set aside all characteristics peculiar to things as individuals and seek the shared characteristics that define them into classes

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A

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In passages from his biological works, Aristotle recognizes that the intention of a myth may be to explain a puzzling observation. In this writing,He cites that a certain myth about a rare species of lion is silly but says that the myth "was invented to account for the rarity of lions, because the person who invented the muthos was at a loss as to its explanation; for the animal is rare, and is not found in many places..."

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A

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Aristotle recognizes that the myth may be rooted in the same world of experience as science and may attempt to explain the same puzzling facts as science.

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A

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For Aristotle the aim of science is to provide explanations or causes. So a myth, if it is trying to explain a puzzling observation, has the same objective of science.

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A

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Myth, like philosophy and science is an expression of the wonder generated in us by the natural world.

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A

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Myth can be seen as an attempt to answer the same questions as science. Myths are our predecessors answers to the same puzzles that we scientifically or philosphically are now trying to solve

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A

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No suprise that Aristotle makes use of myth-tellers and poets such as Homer, Hesiod, Musaeus in his scientific works. Though he doesnt always agree with the myth tellers the point is rather that Aristotle sees the myth tellers as sufficiently involved with the explanation of natural phenomena for their opinions to be relevant.

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A

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We can see myth as an early expression of the same explanatory instinct as science without thinking that we can learn anything today from myth.

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A

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In Aristotle's Movement of Animals, he uses the myth of Atlas holding the world to contribute positively to his deduction of what moves the universe. For instance, he accepts from the myth that the earth remains still. Thus, the myth constitutes a theoretical position that can take part in the critical interchange with other views through which Aristotle arrives at his own theory.

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A

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In this critical interchange, part of the theory is saved (that the earth remains still) part is rejected. The myth is part of the endoxic material out of which Aristotle builds his own theories.

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Intro

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founders of logic, reason and philosphical thought. We do not associate their teachings or legacy with myth, legend, or even religion. However, in examining the influences on both Plato and Aristotle, it is evident that the religious and mythical thought in ancient greek at that time, played a role in the development of their scientific theories. Their theories were not a complete departure from the religious and mythical thought occuring at that time.

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A

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We begin with a picture of Aristolian science that excludes muthos, a picture that was supported by the polemical use of the muthos/logaos distinction. However, Aristotle is much more accommodating towards myth that this picture suggests. Why?
1. Aristotle recognized the same explanatory intention in muthos and in science
2. his endoxic method allowed for a wide range of beliefs theories and stories (include some labeled as myth) to count as data

Front 42

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Plato

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Plato's writings infused with myth.

In Plato's Timaes ontology and cosmology sound together in harmony. The visible and tangible world has its caue in the higher, true, unchanging being. Plato describes the world as being created by a craftsman demiourgos. Occassionally he is simply called the god. This god has in view an eternal model for his creation

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A

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Though Aristotle rejected some of Platos theories, their remained a common basis in the synthesis of religion and philopsphy. For Aristotle too the first philosophy is essentially theology insofar as it has to do with the highest cause of being.

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P and A

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All of platos pupils (including aristotle) are convinced of the divinity of the cosmos, which finds its expression in the regularity of the orbits of the heavenly bodies