Three Scientific Revolutions: How They Transformed Our Conceptions of Reality (3 page)

There were three major factors explaining the greater acceptance of his philosophy. First, that his basis of knowledge relying on ordinary perceptions, as interpreted within his schema of the four causes, made it less abstract and idealistic and more empirically amenable. These included the “material cause” (the physical composition of objects eventuating in “prime matter)”; the “formal cause” delineating the “species, genus, and definitions to which it belonged”; the “efficient cause” that produces the interactions and changes in nature; and the “final cause” or “end of which” an object or process aims. This final cause involving the actualization of an inherent potentiality added to the appeal because it suited the general conception at the time that all events had an innate purpose.

It was in
The Prior Analytics
that Aristotle created syllogistic logic as his methodology for proving the existence of specific physical properties and efficient and final causes by
deducing
them from
inductive general premises
specifying the particular genus, species, or definition of the object. As illustrated in his classic examples: one can prove that Socrates is mortal in the syllogism “All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal” or demonstrating why, in contrast to the stars, the planets do not twinkle, from the premise “No proximate celestial body twinkles, the planets are such proximate bodies, therefore the planets do not twinkle.” He concluded that since the middle terms, such as ‘men' and ‘proximate celestial body' conjoining the premises provided the proof, they were not merely verbal connections but the
actual causes
of the conclusion stating that “in all our inquiries we are asking either whether there is a ‘middle' or what the ‘middle' is: for the ‘middle' here is precisely the cause, and it is the cause that we seek in our inquiries.”
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Yet it is not just this formal methodology that accounted for Aristotle's tremendous influence, but also the extraordinary range of his research covering nearly every known area of human experience at the time. This includes, in addition to his writings on ethics, politics, rhetoric, poetics, categories, and logic, works “On the Heavens,” “On the Soul,” “Metaphysics,” “Physics,” “Generation and Corruption,” “Memory, Dreams, and Prophesying,” along with the “History, Parts, and Generation of Animals.” I think it can be said that no other thinker ever matched Aristotle in the range and quality (for the time) of his extensive research. Charles Darwin was so impressed by his biological writings that he wrote: “Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods [. . .] but they were mere school-boys compared to old Aristotle.”
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The third factor responsible for his immense influence was his geocentric cosmology that seemed most congruent with our ordinary observations with its distinction between the perfect celestial and imperfect terrestrial worlds involving their contrasting natures and motions: the celestial or heavenly bodies consisting of an aetherial substance and having inherent circular and uniform motions while the terrestrial world consisted of the four Empedoclean elements (earth, air, fire, and water), each with its inherent rectilinear motion upward or downward on the stationary earth. Thus it was Aristotle's more common-sense cosmological system, as emended by Ptolemy and defended by the Scholastics, that generally prevailed from about the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries and was mainly the system that had to be replaced by the scientific inquiries of Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo, Christiaan Huygens, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, the latter declaring that his “two main adversaries were Aristotle and Descartes.”

Before turning to the next historical period and major scientific contributions in ancient Greece, some mention should be made of the secular philosophy and influence of Epicurus (341–270 BCE) as poetically transposed and popularized by the Roman poet Lucretius (ca. 96–ca. 55) owing to most of Epicurus' works being destroyed by the burning of the library in Alexandria.

Born on the Island of Samos, Epicurus left for Athens to study the philosophies of Democritus and Plato and where he later purchased a house and garden that did not serve like the more prestigious academic institutions of Plato's Academy or Aristotle's Lyceum, but as a sheltered enclave where his followers, including women and slaves, could listen to his inspired teachings and discuss his numerous books. Primarily concerned with the ethical question of how to live a tranquil life in a world of conflicts, adversity, and suffering, he accepting that the gods existed due to the universal belief in them and the images (
eidola
) they conveyed in dreams and mystical experiences, yet he denied they exerted
any influence
on human affairs, being divine and involved in their own peaceful existence.

He believed that the universe, including our bodies and our souls, consists of atoms and the void. He even introduced the prescient theory that the various sizes and shapes of the atoms could be explained by their being composed of “internal minima,” which, like the present-day quarks, help account for their physical characteristics yet cannot exist separately or independently. Though adopting Democritus' atomism he denied his strict determinism, introducing a spontaneous “swerve” in the formation of the world to account for its diversity and novelty and to explain free will. Denying religions as superstitions, he believed in an infinite, eternal universe that did not require a creator. Since souls consist of atoms they do not outlive the body and thus one does not have to fear any retribution after death which is the termination of life.

Although Epicurus' ethics was based on the fact that human beings are primarily driven by their desire for pleasure and avoidance of pain, he was aware that not all pleasures are desirable, many are accompanied by painful consequences, thus they must be chosen wisely. The following verse (as translated from the Greek) etched on a wall in Herculeum expresses his ethical philosophy.

There is nothing to fear in God
There is nothing to feel in death;
What is good is easily procured
What is bad is easily endured.

It is thanks to the recovery by Poggio Bracciolini of the epic poem of Lucretius,
De rerum natura
(On the Nature of Things) in a remote monastery library in Herculaneum in 1417, that we have some glimpses into Epicurus' philosophy as presented in Lucretius's extraordinary rendition. Although written in eloquent hexameter verse rather than philosophic prose, it represents the most advanced, rational, and realistic worldview of ancient philosophy. As Fox states in his
The Classical World
, previously cited:

I have tried in this book to tell a little known but exemplary Renaissance story, the story of Poggio Bracciolini's recovery of
On the Nature of Things
. The recovery has the virtue of being true to the term that we use to gesture toward the cultural shift at the origins of modern life and thought: a renaissance, a rebirth, of antiquity. One poem by itself was certainly not responsible for an entire intellectual, oral, and social transformation—no single work was, let alone one that for centuries could not without danger be spoken about freely in public. But his particular ancient book suddenly returning to view made a difference. (p. 11)

Over seventeen centuries would elapse before it was confirmed that the ordinary world was actually composed of what Epicurus still referred to as Democratean atoms but Lucretius called “first things” or “the seeds of things.” They were eternal, unchanging, imperceptible, ultimate particles that exist in an infinite spatial void whose constant motions and interactions create the great diversities of nature along with their destructions, since everything thus created is perishable except the particles themselves. As this includes our souls along with our bodies they, too, decompose when we die, even though they are of a finer nature, and thus there is no afterlife. In this way Epicurus and Lucretius eliminated the suffering and retributions that were the greatest fears instilled by religions, especially the Christian Inquisition, one of the most terrifying periods in history. And there is no purpose to existence, just the natural occurrences produced by the imperishable particles.

Though he was not an atheist since, like Epicurus, Lucretius did not deny the existence of the gods, claiming that they were entirely too exalted and involved in their own affairs to be concerned with humankind. Rejecting an ethics based on divine moral principles and reinforced by the threat of eternal damnation or the reward of a beatific afterlife that they regarded as delusional, they defined the highest ethical principle as the “enhancement of pleasure and reduction of pain,” according to Fox (p. 195).

Though aware that the needs and desires of mankind, such as the satisfaction of sexual drives, nutritional needs, and shelter, along with the gratifications that come with the attainment of prestige, power, and fame must be fulfilled to some extent Lucretius, like Epicurus, stressed moderation. They both considered that a tranquil existence with reasonable and wholesome pleasures is the ultimate goal in life and more easily attained than a voluptuous, hedonistic, despotic, God-fearing life. Having declared that the original particles move in a random, deterministic way but realizing that ethics requires free will Lucretius, as did Epicurus, introduced a “swerve” to allow some novelty in nature and freedom of the will. Fox again presents a very concise but accurate summary of Lucretius's poetic rendition of the Epicurean philosophy.

The realization that the universe consists of atoms and void and nothing else, that the world was not made for us by a providential creator, that we are not the center of the universe, that our emotional lives are no more distinct than our physical lives from those of all other creatures, that our souls are as material and as mortal as our bodies–—all these things are not the cause for despair. On the contrary, grasping the way things really are is the crucial step toward the possibility of happiness. Human insignificance–—the fact that it is not all about us and our fate–—is, Lucretius insisted, the good news. (p. 199)

What an enlightened conception of reality that still is not accepted by a majority of Americans and other civilizations, though increasingly acknowledged by Europeans.

Returning to our historical narrative, Aristotle's death in 322 BCE followed by that of Alexander the Great a year later, coincided with the usual date 323 BCE given for the termination of the Hellenic classical period. This was succeeded by the Hellenistic Age, conventionally dating from the accession of Alexander the Great to the Macedonian throne in 336 BCE after the death of his father King Phillip, to the death of the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra VII, in 30 BCE, although including some later Hellenistic scholars. The year before his untimely death Alexander had designated the port city Alexandria in Egypt as his namesake, but his empire having been divided into three portions after his death, with General Ptolemy taking control of Alexandria, the growth of the port into the largest and most prestigious Hellenistic city is due to the wise governing of the Ptolemaic dynasty that endured for about three centuries.

It was the Ptolemies who created its famous Museum that became the center of research in astronomy, mathematics, physics, engineering, anatomy, and medicine that eventually eclipsed Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum as the world's center of learning. Adjacent to the Museum was the equally famous Royal Alexandrian Library that, according to the earliest account, was built during the reign of Ptolemy I Sorter (ca. 367–ca. 283 BCE), but organized by a prestigious student of Aristotle, Demetrius of Phaleron, that became the greatest library of the ancient world.

This period has been referred to as the “first great age of science,” surpassing the achievements of the Hellenic Greeks because their scientific investigations and discoveries were less speculative, conforming more to and thus the forebear of, modern classical science.
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Unlike Aristotle whose scientific works have all been disproved despite their profound historical influence, some of the scientific and mathematical contributions of the Hellenistic thinkers are still valid. Listed in their chronological order they include Euclid, the most famous of the Alexandrian mathematicians who wrote in the third century BCE. Though he began his mathematical studies in Plato's Academy, he wrote his famous
Elements of Geometry
while in Alexandria, acclaimed as the most widely read book in history except for the Bible and extolled by the young Einstein as the model for scientific reasoning.

The second most renowned mathematician, also of the third century BCE, was Archimedes who lived in Syracuse, Sicily, but visited Alexandria two years after the death of Euclid. His outstanding contributions include his method of exhaustion anticipating differential calculus, discovery of the law of specific gravity, and formulation of the principles underlying many technological inventions such as the lever, the pulley, and the tubular screw used to pump water from wells and mines. It is reputed that his pulleys were so powerful that during the siege of Syracuse he was able to attach them to the bows of Roman ships lifting and twisting them out of the sea casting the terrified crew overboard. A third famous Hellenistic mathematician was Hipparchus of Nicaea, who lived in the second century BCE and is especially known for founding plane and spherical trigonometry.

We previously discussed the contributions of Aristarchus of Samos, who wrote in the third century BCE and is referred to as the “Hellenistic Copernicus.” Yet the only evidence we have of this is in Archimedes' description in the “The Sand-Reckoner.”

Now you [Kind Gelon] are aware that “universe” is the name given by most astronomers to the sphere whose centre is the centre of the earth. . . . But Aristarchus of Samos brought out a book consisting of some hypotheses. . . . [such as] that the fixed stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth revolves about the sun in the circumference of a circle, the sun lying in the middle of the orbit.
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(Brackets added)