
Rescuing Aristotle - ivank
http://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/rescuing-aristotle/
======
tjradcliffe
It is worth remembering that many of Aristotle's works begin by covering the
whole field as it existed in his time, and it is often difficult to untangle
what Aristotle himself thought vs what he reported others thinking. The
"standard" translations of Aristotle's major works--particularly Metaphysics--
by Sir David Ross are also heavily influenced by Ross' neo-Platonism, so they
can be quite misleading given the number of gaps and ambiguities that need to
be filled.

It is also worth remembering that we know today that Aristotle's physics
accurately describes human experience. If you inquire into the physical
beliefs of non-physicist college students you will find they give accounts
that are Aristotelian to the core. The degree to which Newtonian physics is
bizarre, abstract and counter-intuitive is often forgotten by people who bash
Aristotle. He was often wrong, but the problems he was working on were
fiercely difficult, and the tools he had to bring to bear on them incredibly
crude by modern standards.

~~~
dgfv1
One of the things that was emphasized to me when I was studying the ancient
greeks was that I should try to step outside my own mindset and try to read
the text as it is, rather than to try to interpret it from my own cultural or
modern perspective. I think this is an important step to take when you study
these kinds of texts.

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zenogais
Thank you for this post! Loved it.

I feel like this is part of a larger bias among scientists to view the history
of science as a clear progression from worse methods of explanation to better.
This pernicious misreading of history seems to lead many scientists to view
philosophers as proto-scientists rather than the more complex thought pioneers
and concept creators that they are. Notable exceptions to this would include
Albert Einstein who cited inspiration from and exhibited a competent
understanding of Spinoza.

~~~
tjradcliffe
Philosophers are proto-scientists in the same way that alchemists are proto-
scientists. They were both pursuing a goal that we now know is both impossible
and uninteresting: turning base metals into gold in the case of alchemists,
and certain propositions in the case of philosophers.

As a scientist who has studied philosophy seriously, I am comfortable saying
this is generally true of everything philosophers do: it is based on a
fundamentally mistaken approach to understanding the world that vastly over-
states the role of introspection, the fidelity of the senses, common-sense,
memory, and the human perspective. The arts are an appropriate place for such
explorations, and they should be understood as what they are: studies of human
experience, and nothing else. They can't teach us anything about the way the
world actually is, or what are the optimal principles to govern our behaviour,
or any of the other things that philosophers claim to this day is their unique
subject of study. There is a role for natural philosophy as the foundations of
science, but the rest? Un-natural philosophy has neither place nor use, and
Einstein's modest affection for Spinoza was almost completely irrelevant to
this actual science.

Philosophers have been trying to claim "inspiration" for the work of
scientists for centuries (there used to be a significant contingent of
Aristotelians who claimed Newton was inspired by Aristotle, which is almost
completely without empirical basis.) It's kind of sad, seeing a several
thousand year exercise in wrong-headedness finally meet its inevitable end,
and of course there will be a few who insist on soldiering blindly on,
arbitrarily privileging the human scale and human senses, blissfully unaware
they are spouting gibberish, while the rest of us feel rather sad for them,
and try to keep them away from sharp objects and the reins of power.

~~~
igravious
'gibberish', eh?

Ouch.

I refute it thus: science itself cannot tell us why I should believe the
claims of the astronomer over the claims of the astrologer.

The moment you try to explain why the belief system of the former should be
privileged over the belief system of the latter you have left the realm of
what science itself claims it can do.

I have no problem with scientists thinking they have displaced theologians
with their better explanations of the natural world; I reject totally that
science can in any way replace the inter-generational philosophical project, I
reject that the proper place for the philosophical project is the arts, and I
reject that the philosophical project has in any way come to an end.

Also, your insults do you an injustice. And didn't anyone ever tell you that
pride comes before a fall?

~~~
3ifbyw
The object of science, in the final analysis, is the collection, evaluation,
and‒if the stars align‒acceptance as truth of sufficiently explanatory
evidence. It is laughable to assert that the astrologers have better assisted
us in this endeavor, or even that their contributions are on a par with those
of astronomers. If you cannot adopt this perspective, you are simply lost to
logical discourse; what evidence could possibly be provided to you to convince
you to value evidence?

For what it's worth, you might like to know that it's destruction which pride
precedeth.[0]

0:
[http://biblehub.com/proverbs/16-18.htm](http://biblehub.com/proverbs/16-18.htm)

~~~
igravious
Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm not asserting that there is any kind of
equivalence between astrology and astronomy, I'm asserting that it is not
science itself that can draw the distinction between the claims of the two but
rather it is the philosophy of science where this takes place. that was my
rebuttal.

I never knew (obviously) that 'pride comes before a fall' is a common misquote
but I do now! Thanks!

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atmosx
I don't think that any of the scientists/philosophers/mathematicians mentioned
(not even Hawkings) can _damage_ Aristotle that much. Aristotle is kind of
_far and away_ in terms of _perceived importance_. Perceived because I don't
know the body of work of all the people mentioned in the article.

IMHO these ancient scholars from whom western civilisation started, will be
read and re-read from the original text, studied and re-studied much more
thoroughly and many more times in the years to come than Russel of Hawkings.
Maybe unfortunately so, maybe not. I'm not able to judge any of the names
mentioned in the article. That's just a feeling, only time will tell.

As other posters already pointed out, when science comes at play, we have to
understand the dynamics of ancient Greece at 400 BC, with their lifestyle,
beliefs and lack of knowledge (in any science: physics, chemistry, etc.).

However the most important body of Greek philosophy is the questions/answers
surrounding men, existence, purpose (in life), knowledge (inherited or
learned?), etc. Because these are universal questions that any human being
with acceptable intellect will have to confront in his lifetime.

Off-topic: I've read an essay some time ago - can't find the link :-( - saying
that especially today the difference between the body of knowledge of a _top
notch scientist_ and average peasant Joe is chaotic. Might be, but thinking
how Aristotle, Euclid, Newton or Gauss would have felt in their era when
talking to a peasant is a lot more scary to me.

------
jeangenie
I think people commit a grave error when they try to pick out absurd-sounding
beliefs that ancient people may or may not have held. The larger point is that
Aristotle and Plato gave us ideas and concepts that we still think _with_.

To give some perspective, at the time these guys lived they were still
inventing alphabets and didn't put spaces between words. Reading was still a
crude and unpolished form of communication, most people (Plato included) were
illiterate.

Their ideas are rudimentary but fundamental so it's easy to nitpick
technicalities but completely ignores their most important contributions.

/rant

~~~
abecedarius
Can you back up this claim of an illiterate Plato? That sounds like the sort
of assertion this post complains about. Plato's dialogs do have Socrates
complaining about book-learning.

AFAICT literacy rates in classical Athens are uncertain. I recently read
[http://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Lives-Ancient-Greeks-
Peoples/...](http://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Lives-Ancient-Greeks-
Peoples/dp/0313385718) which left me with an impression of relatively high
rates for male citizens, but I don't remember anything concrete. Searching
turns up [http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-
stud...](http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-
studies/ancient-history/literacy-and-democracy-fifth-century-athens) which
says the orthodoxy is for low rates, but argues against it.

~~~
jeangenie
In my hasty reply I wrote Plato but meant Socrates. In fact Plato was most
definitely literate. In fairness this was also only unsubstantiated rumor.
Socrates upbringing was supposedly poor so it's possible he could have been.
However my overall point was that this isn't important in light of his larger
contributions.

------
runarberg
So people misquote Aristoteles, so what? His philosophy is over 2000 years
old, and severely outdated. Even if he didn't say a bunch of the non sense
that is often attributed to him, he still said a lot of non sense. Perhaps not
his fault (I'm sure in the year 4000 Bertrand Russel and Ludwig Wittgenstein
will be considered obsolete gibberish). The point is that attributing truth
value to authority is bad. Western science halted for many centuries because
truth value was given to what Aristoteles said (or didn't say). I suppose that
the OP has learned her/his lesson by not trusting Bertrand Russel on the
claims. But he/she is then just re-iterating Russel's point. Don't base truth
on authority.

