Week 1: Aristotle to Scientific Revolution

Question 1

What does Aristotle believe is responsible for organisation of a natural object?

Answer 1

Aristotle believes there must be something responsible for the organisation of a natural object, which is not just the matter itself. That something is form.

Question 2

How can you show matter doesn’t have a fixed identity?

Answer 2

It’s defined relative to the form it takes. For example:

1. Wood is matter for a chair.
2. But the same wood could be matter for a table.
3. So “matter” is always understood in terms of what form it’s aiming toward.

Question 3

How is substance the foundation of reality?

Answer 3

So substance is the foundation of reality. Something (tree, person) doesn’t depend on something to exist, because it already exists in itself.

Other things are properties of substances, and only make sense relative to them.

Question 4

Substance

Answer 4

Aristotle claims that everything that has a nature (i.e. what can grow and change naturally) is a substance.

Question 5

Artefact

Answer 5

Has an eternal cause/principle of change, so an artefact is made by something outside it, like a craftsman (chair, table). Form is imposed: the shape/structure of the artefact is not part of its nature. Aristotle would say an artefact doesn’t have a “nature” of its own, because it doesn’t grow, change or develop by itself.

Question 6

Artefact: matter vs. form

Answer 6

Matter: the stuff it’s made of (wood, metal).
Form: the design shape (shape of the chair).

These are clearly separate: the matter existed before the form was added, and it will still exist after the chair breaks.

Question 7

Natural object

Answer 7

Internal cause/principle of change: a natural object has its own internal source of growth and development (human, tree, animal). Form is in its nature. It isn’t something imposed from the outside.

Question 8

Natural object: matter vs. form

Answer 8

Form and matter are interdependent.

Matter: isn’t dependent like in artefacts; it depends on the form, e.g. when a living body dies (loses its form), the matter decays.

Form: also depends on the right kind of matter. You can’t make a tiger out of stone, because it needs biological matter to realise its form.

Question 9

Development from potential to actual

Answer 9

In living things, the form exists first as a potential (like an acorn potentially being an oak tree). Over time, the natural thing develops itself, driven by an internal tendency or purpose (telos) to become what it is. Once it’s fully grown or matured, the form is actualised. It’s no longer potential but fully real and complete.

Question 10

Modern science vs. Aristotle on form and matter

Answer 10

Modern science: tends to believe that if we understand matter and its properties (atoms, molecules), we’ll be able to explain how form emerges.

Aristotle: form is not reducible to matter. You can’t fully explain an organism just by describing the atoms it’s made of, but you need to understand its form, structure and purpose.

Question 11

Rens Bod on the history of the humanities

Answer 11

Bod argues that humanities disciplines (like philology, the study of texts and languages) have played an important role in shaping scientific thinking.

Question 12

How did philology, specifically in the early modern period, contribute to the scientific method?

Answer 12

Philology showed that theories and interpretations could be challenged and revised based on new evidence (like newly discovered manuscripts or linguistic patterns).

Question 13

What idea does Bod reject and why?

Answer 13

The idea that the humanities and sciences are totally separate or opposite.

He says that both fields aim to discover underlying patterns (nature, history, literature) and both use formal methods to describe them (logic, statistics, models, rules).

Question 14

When is it not helpful to reduce things to the smallest parts (like physics or chemistry)?

Answer 14

Explaining a painting purely in terms of atoms or neural activity misses the point of what the art means.

Question 15

Three different levels at which people can engage with science:

Answer 15

1. Engaging with scientific products: learning about the results and discoveries made by scientists (reading about gravity, evolution, etc.).
2. Doing scientific research: actively performing experiments, collecting data, hypotheses.
3. Analysing science itself: studying how science works, its methods, assumptions, history.

Question 16

What do modern science and Aristotelian science agree on?

Answer 16

1. The world can be understood.
2. It can be understood by humans.
3. For which we need to rely on observation.
4. But also on building theories and giving explanations.

Question 17

The way modern science works is closer to Galilean science. This works well for the natural sciences. How does it pose a problem for the humanities?

Answer 17

It focuses on measurement, laws, and mathematical models.
But this Galilean method may not work as well for the humanities (history, art, literature), where context, meaning, and interpretation are essential.

In these fields, Aristotle’s approach might make more sense.

Question 18

Teleology

Answer 18

Explaining things in terms of goals or purposes (from Greek telos, meaning “end” or “goal”).

This includes natural motion, the internal cause of change, the four elements and form.

Question 19

Natural motion

Answer 19

What something does on its own without interference. Fire rises, rocks fall, not because of external forces, but because that’s their natural tendency.

Question 20

What is Galileo’s solution to excluding disturbances when practising science? What is an example?

Answer 20

Galileo’s solution is: to understand the true nature of phenomena, you need to create artificial situations; simplified environments where variables can be isolated.

Studying motion on a smooth ramp instead of watching random objects fall in the wild.

Question 21

What is Galileo’s view of physics and biology?

Answer 21

Physics is clean, mathematical, and universal.

Biology or other complex fields (like the humanities) are messy, exception-ridden, and less suited to strict laws.

Question 22

Galilean shift

Answer 22

Galileo marks a major turning point in science: away from observing things “in nature” (as Aristotle recommended) and toward experimenting under controlled, simplified conditions.

This leads to the idea that science is not about describing nature as it appears, but rather about discovering the laws that govern it, even if we have to create artificial setups to see them clearly.

Question 23

Why does Galileo treat physics as the prototype of what science should be?

Answer 23

1. Particles cannot be further broken down: they are quite simple in their structure (as opposed to a crew, which is complex).
2. Electrons are everywhere, they are universal, while cows are not everywhere.
3. Electrons are all the same, while cows are individually unique.
4. A law about electrons has no exceptions, while there are no laws about cows without exceptions (all cows have the same form, but each realised form is a little different).
5. With cows, there is a maturation/growth, and there are ‘goals’, while with electrons this is not the case.

Question 24

Galileo Galilei

Answer 24

Crucial figure in the 17t century development of modern science, defending laws of nature (‘all things fall with the same speed’).

Question 25

How do you understand science?

Answer 25

Scientists want to draw conclusions from data. It is important to understand when something is legitimate and when it's illegitimate to draw a conclusion.