Was Aristotle an advancement in Western science?

[RisingSun361]

Did Aristotle advance Western science? I know he was a geocentrist, but I'm looking at science before him, and there isn't much of anything there. The fact that he wrote down his ideas, in and of itself, seems to be an improvement in science. The fact that he was thinking, and talking, and wondering, and trying to figure out the cosmos in an academic way seems like a great improvement in the 4th century B.C. Ptolemy, on the other hand, dropped the ball. He should have taken Aristotle's work and improved on it. Ptolemy had a lot more to work with, but he failed to improve science.

 

[Evo]

Until Aristotle's philosophical beliefs started to hold back science after the Renaisance.

The other problem is that Aristotle has a lot to answer for. His ideas about physics and astronomy (which Mr. Leroi mostly, and conveniently, ignores) were wrong in every important respect. Aristotle thought celestial bodies moved in perfect circles, failed to recognize inertia, asserted that velocity—not acceleration— was proportional to applied force, rejected atoms, and argued that the Earth and the heavens were made of totally different substances. As Bertrand Russell observed: “Throughout modern times, practically every advance in science, in logic, or in philosophy has had to be made in the teeth of opposition from Aristotle’s disciples.”

Mr. Leroi’s determination to defend Aristotle against such charges leads him to increasingly strained excuses for his hero’s lapses. The author acknowledges that Aristotle’s ideas about the development of the embryo are “quite strange.” Among other things, Aristotle
thought that eggs arose from the congealing of semen and menstrual fluids and that semen is hyper-refined blood, which only males are able to generate because they are “warmer” than females. But still, Mr. Leroi lamely concludes, “you have to admire the sheer audacity of his system.”

Aristotle indiscriminately mixed direct observations of animals with the most ludicrous mythical tales (lizards crawl into the noses of donkeys and stop them from eating). Mr. Leroi excuses this by suggesting, with no evidence whatsoever, that Aristotle at the same time must have “silently suppressed vast amounts of dubious data.” He pusillanimously sidesteps Aristotle’s unpleasant views about the subservience of women to men and the natural morality of slavery by suggesting that all Aristotle is saying is that some people are better suited than others to be managers, a view that he implies is really no different from modern corporate hiring practices. And while he indignantly rejects the contention that the legacy of Aristotle’s ideas held back scientific progress for centuries, even he is finally forced to admit that Aristotle’s theories of spontaneous generation “had a baleful effect on early modern science.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-lagoon-by-armand-marie-leroi-1413580668

 

[micromass]

Until Aristotle's philosophical beliefs started to hold back science after the Renaisance.

That's not the fault of Aristotle at all. If people 10 centuries from now take Einstein as sacred and infallible, then that might hold back science too. That doesn't diminish from Einstein's genius or contributions to science.

 

[Evo]

That's not the fault of Aristotle at all. If people 10 centuries from now take Einstein as sacred and infallible, then that might hold back science too. That doesn't diminish from Einstein's genius or contributions to science.

Yeah, Aristotle was already dead, it was people following his beliefs.

 

[rootone]

I think Pythagorous was just as interesting, but still not that relevant to present day science ( or politics).

 

[Tobias Funke]

I don't even know if it was people following his beliefs, rather than using his name to bolster their own beliefs. From no less than Galileo himself:

Indeed I shall go further. I think that by holding the heavenly material to be alterable (based on the truth of present-day observations), I am opposing Aristotle’s doctrine much less than those who would still want to claim it to be inalterable. For I am sure that he never regarded the conclusion of inalterability as certain as the principle that plain sense experience must have priority over any human theory. Thus, one will philosophize better by giving assent to conclusions dependent on clear observations than by persisting in opinions that are repugnant to the senses and are confirmed only with probable or apparent reasons.

Emphasis mine (gah, I always forget the whole thing is italicized--I'll try bold). Sounds very modern to me. Whether Galileo was just saying this to bolster his arguments, I don't know. I just know that Galileo understood him quite well and, though he knew he was wrong, he did seem to respect him. As for respecting his followers, well, not so much...

 

[rootone]

So then it seems that Galileo regarded Aristotle to a bit 'left wing', but not in the totalitarian sense.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I don't even know if it was people following his beliefs, rather than using his name to bolster their own beliefs. From no less than Galileo himself:
Emphasis mine (gah, I always forget the whole thing is italicized--I'll try bold). Sounds very modern to me. Whether Galileo was just saying this to bolster his arguments, I don't know. I just know that Galileo understood him quite well and, though he knew he was wrong, he did seem to respect him. As for respecting his followers, well, not so much...

I think that quote is a case of Galileo pulling his punches in order not to be too offensive to whomever that was addressed to. Aristotle was held in high regard by many prominent clergymen of the time as well as wealthy patrons of academic institutions. Whenever Galileo addressed one of Aristotle's particular assertions in debate with Aristotelian philosophers, he would make it look as ridiculous as it was. Most notable is his purely logical ridiculing of Aristotle's notion that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. (That is: he took it apart on purely logical grounds without even resorting to a demonstration it wasn't the case.) I'm pretty sure any respect Galileo might seem to have had for Aristotle at any time was surface diplomacy.

 

[Tobias Funke]

Yes, that could be the case. But then again, Galileo wasn't so great at diplomacy! I haven't read enough (or any) Aristotle to know if he would be likely to change his theories when presented with new physical evidence, or if he ever wrote any such thing. That would pretty much make all the difference between him being a scientific thinker (for his time at least) or just some guy who said a bunch of crazy stuff.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Yes, that could be the case. But then again, Galileo wasn't so great at diplomacy! I haven't read enough (or any) Aristotle to know if he would be likely to change his theories when presented with new physical evidence, or if he ever wrote any such thing. That would pretty much make all the difference between him being a scientific thinker (for his time at least) or just some guy who said a bunch of crazy stuff.

When it came to debates with peers he (Galileo) certainly did not try to spare anyone's feelings. On the other hand, he was diplomatic with societal and church superiors. As mathematician he was taught how to cast horoscopes and he often did that for nobles who subscribed to a belief in astrology, for example. The introduction he wrote to "The Starry Messenger" made some disingenuous allusions to astrology for the sake of the noble to whom it was dedicated, and his letters to important demonstrate all the pro forma sucking up required by the customs of the times by anyone in his position relative to them.

I once picked up a book of Aristotle and the chapter I delved into seemed to be a rebuttal to a viewpoint held by someone else. Certainly, therefore, he considered things open to debate, but his whole playing field was abstreuse and impenetrable. Here's a section from the wiki on Aristotle:

"Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle's ontology, however, finds the universal in particular things, which he calls the essence of things, while in Plato's ontology, the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, therefore, epistemology is based on the study of particular phenomena and rises to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato epistemology begins with knowledge of universal Forms (or ideas) and descends to knowledge of particular imitations of these. For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a particular substance (see Universals and particulars, below)."

So, when you're preoccupied with completely non-practical philosophical issues like whether things contain the essence of universal things or whether particular things merely imitate universal things, you never get any traction on practical mechanics and can reason out some pretty strange explanations of phenomena.