STS200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Physis, Christian Contemplation, Natural Philosophy
29 Mar 2017
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Objective: greek associations of slavery with techne (art) reinforced their exclusive interest in theory. Roman preoccupation with maintaining political power reinforced their neglect of theory. Natural philosophy as a divinely abstract world-picture: The natural philosopher (scientist) looks at the world as a chaotic mess (nature) and not as an ordered reality (logos). They must think around the chaotic appearances to see the ordered reality. Platonic otherworldliness: truth and reality must be irrelevant to the world of nature, the ordered reality is pure form/ideals (plato), philosophy is preparation for death. Aristotle"s thisworldliness: more interested in explaining the way things look, all knowledge begins in with the chaos of experience, but knowledge must not stop there, experimentation is unnatural. To learn about nature, you should not put it in artificial scenarios. To find out what is natural, we must study specimens which retain their nature and not those which have been corrupted. : causal knowledge is universal and abstract.
