2.0 Aristotle, Plato, & Newton

Chapter Two Begins a Quick History of Physics

“I think with your friend that it has been of late
too much the mode to slight the learning of the ancients.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, London
vol. 64, p. 445 (1774)

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) argued that Western philosophy was a series of footnotes to the Greek philosopher, Plato (~428-423–348/347 BC) [[i]]. In that sense, one could argue that Western science is a series of footnotes to Plato’s student, Aristotle (384–322 BC). Each is responsible for a school of thought that between them have guided the course of scientific development to the present day. Aristotle identified the distinction between these two schools of thought:

Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena are more able to lay down principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations [[ii]].

In Aristotle’s school of thought, existence comes first: the world we live in is recognized as independent of one’s consciousness. Consciousness is understood as the faculty of perceiving and understanding what exists, out there, in reality. Without initiating some specific physical action, consciousness does not create the things we see, nor does it control them. Consciousness is thus dependent on existence.

Aristotle’s teacher, Plato, championed the opposing school. Platonists hold that consciousness comes first: the world we live in is thought to be created or controlled by consciousness.

Figure 2.1: Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) from Raphael’s “School of Athens” [[iii]].

The things we see are figments of our, or society’s, or God’s imagination. In this view, existence is a derivative of consciousness. As philosopher Leonard Peikoff (1933–   ) put it, Aristotle was the champion of “primacy of existence,” Plato of the “primacy of consciousness” [[iv]]. Figure 2.1 depicts these two intellectual giants.

Followers of each school of thought have a preferred mode of cognition. Platonists look inward. Starting from well-established axioms, the Platonist derives the logical consequences of those axioms through a process of deduction. The archetype of a Platonic system is Euclidean geometry, in which plane geometry may be derived from the logical consequences of five axioms. Starting from established truths, the Platonist can discover and derive their deeper meaning and implications.

The Aristotelian looks outward. By observing nature and its phenomena, the Aristotelian infers the basic principles governing their behavior through a process of induction. The archetype of an Aristotelian system is biology, in which the diversity of living things may be grouped together according to their similarities and distinguished from each other according to their differences. Aristotelians establish the fundamental truths from which Platonists derive deeper meanings.

Figure 2.2: Plato versus Aristotle.

The chart of Figure 2.2 compares and contrasts Plato and Aristotle. On one level, each mode is essential to the other. The Aristotelian breaks new ground and establishes new principles. The Platonist derives the implications and consequences of those principles. The Aristotelian is more of an experimentalist and innovator. The Platonist more of a theorist and systematizer. As the Platonic structure arises from a set of principles, grows, and develops imperfections, the Aristotelian catalogs the problems and updates or modifies the principles. Plato started his examination of politics with abstract discussions of love and justice and the connection between the city and the souls of its citizens. Aristotle started his analysis of politics by gathering 158 different constitutions and analyzing them [[v]].

On another level, Platonism is an all-too-common disease of intellectuals. The Platonist delights in abstract concepts, symbol manipulation, and intellectual flights of fancy to the neglect of everyday reality. The trope of the “brilliant” academic, advocating ideas that defy common sense verges on cliché.

Culture in general and science in particular always involve both Aristotelian and Platonic elements. We cycle between an Aristotelian period in which new principles are discovered and a Platonic period in which the consequences of those principles are worked out and applied. As we reach “peak-Platonism,” the flaws of the prevailing intellectual models become evident, and a new generation of Aristotelians catalog the problems and devise fundamental principles for the next layer of abstraction.

Science oscillates between Aristotelian and Platonic extremes, but these are not the only intellectual cycles we find in scientific thinking. Our fundamental understanding of reality has similarly oscillated between two opposing models: “atomism” and “plenism.” Let’s take a moment to understand the origins of these ideas and their implications.

Next week, 2.1 Ancient Ideas of Atomism & Plenism.

---

[i] Whitehead, Alfred North, Process and Reality, New York: The Free Press, 1979, p. 39.

[ii] Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption, Book 2, 316a, 5-10.

[iii] Raphael, School of Athens, 1509-1511 - Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain. Plato was modelled on Leonardo. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75881

[iv] Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, (New York: Dutton, 1991), pp. 17-23.

[v] Randall, John Herman, Aristotle, New York: Columbia University Press, 1960, p. 257-258.