PHL109: Ancient Philosophy: Physics

Introduction.--Explanation of symbols.--Text and translation of the twenty-five propositions of Book I of the Or Adonai.--Notes to the twenty-five propositions of Book I of the Or Adonai.

Text in English, translated from the Ancient Greek; introduction and notes in English. Translated by David Konstan.

The Physics is one of Aristotle's masterpieces--a work of extraordinary intellectual power which has had a profound influence on the development of metaphysics and the philosophy of science, as well as on the development of physics itself. This collection of ten new essays by leading Aristotelian scholars examines a wide range of issues in the Physics and related works, including method, causation and explanation, chance, teleology, the infinite, the nature of time, the critique of atomism, the role of mathematics in Aristotle's physics, and the concept of self-motion. The essays offer fresh approaches to Aristotle's work in these areas, and important new interpretations of his thought.

This book considers the concepts that lay at the heart of natural philosophy and physics from the time of Aristotle until the fourteenth century. The first part presents Aristotelian ideas and the second part presents the interpretation of these ideas by Philoponus, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, John Buridan, and Duns Scotus. Across the eight chapters, the problems and texts from Aristotle that set the stage for European natural philosophy as it was practiced from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries are considered first as they appear in Aristotle and then as they are reconsidered in the context of later interests. The study concludes with an anticipation of Newton and the sense in which Aristotle s physics had been transformed."

This examination of Aristotle's concept of natural substance and its implications for change, process, agency, teleology, mathematical continuity, and eternal motion illustrates the conceptual power of Aristotle's metaphysics of nature along with its scientific limitations and internal tensions.

These two volumes of essays by outstanding Aristotelian scholars, philosophers of science, and scientists explore the relevance of Aristotle's thought to developments in contemporary science in such diverse fields as Newtonian and quantum mechanics, relativity theory, mathematics, cosmology, biology, psychology, philosophy of mind, logic, ethics, politics, poetics, and economics. In addition, they offer original and enlightening perspectives on how Aristotle's thinking can help us solve problems concerning scientific knowledge and method, demonstrative science, explanation, mechanistic determinism, teleology, and realism. Although not all the contributors are in accord as to Aristotle's success in answering questions of our own day, their exploration of the Stagirite's thought contributes to a deepening of our understanding of such fundamental concepts as time, infinity, continuity, matter, causation, mind, soul, life, and potentiality and shows why Aristotle is so very alive today.<BR> These volumes are the result of the 1997 Aristotle and Contemporary Science International Conference held at the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece. The conference was host to eighty scholars from Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Volume I includes essays initially presented in the plenary sessions, while volume II is a collection of selected papers presented at the conference.

Reprint. Originally published: New Haven : Yale University Press, 1963.