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Abstracting Aristotle's philosophy of mathematics
pp. 163-176
Abstract
In the history of science perhaps the most influential Aristotelian division was that between mathematics and physics. From our modern perspective this seems like an unfortunate deviation from the Platonic unification of the two disciplines, which guided Kepler and Galileo towards the modern scientific revolution. By contrast, Aristotle's sharp distinction between the disciplines seems to have led to a barren scholasticism in physics, together with an arid instrumentalism in Ptolemaic astronomy. On the positive side, however, astronomy was liberated from commonsense realism for the conceptual experiments of Aristarchus of Samos, whose heliocentric hypothesis was not adopted by later astronomers because it departed so much from the ancient cosmological consensus. It was only in the time of Newton that convincing physical arguments were able to overcome the legitimate objections against heliocentrism, which had looked like a mathematical hypothesis with no physical meaning.
Publication details
Published in:
Babich Babette (2002) Hermeneutic philosophy of science, van Gogh's eyes, and God: essays in Honor of Patrick A. Heelan, S.J.. Dordrecht, Springer.
Pages: 163-176
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-1767-0_13
Full citation:
Cleary John J. (2002) „Abstracting Aristotle's philosophy of mathematics“, In: B. Babich (ed.), Hermeneutic philosophy of science, van Gogh's eyes, and God, Dordrecht, Springer, 163–176.