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亚里士多德是真正的科学家吗?

已有 3078 次阅读 2017-6-23 14:45 |系统分类:科研笔记

Was Aristotle a true scientist?


Dr. Kathryn Tian


Crump stated: “As BertrandRussell has noted, ‘everything …that Aristotle said on scientific subjects,proved an obstacle to progress’. Before science could begin to discover itstrue nature, Aristotle had to be dethroned.”(1) Aristotle has been known to beso wrong in most of his works on particular science subjects. Then, was Aristotlestill a true scientist? To answer this question, firstly, we need to understandwhat the true science is. “Science has been defined in different ways indifferent times.” And, “In general, science is a continuous, ongoing process inwhich each generation of researchers gradually improves upon previousinsights.” (2) Science is a growth and is always moving. It is an unendingjourney mankind can always enjoy. As Newton said, “The business of naturalphilosophy is to argue from phenomena … and to deduce causes from effects, tillwe come to the very first cause, which certainly is not mechanical.” (3)Science is not isolated. It has strong relationship with philosophy, religionand even politics. To judge a scientist, we must put him/her in the social contextand never forget about the timeline.

The most important feature of modern scienceis the formation of a hypothesis. The hypothesis is called a hypothesis becauseit can be falsified. Another important feature of modern science is the methodsto test the hypothesis must be rigorous and objective. Observation is the basicbut experimentation is the critical. “A THEORY IS A HYPOTHESIS or set ofhypothesis that has stood the test of time and (so far, at least) has not beencontradicted by evidence.” (2) So, “No claim made by science is regarded asirrevocably or ultimately true. Even the most authoritative and durable ideascan be overturned at any time if there is evidence to the contrary.” (2) Basedon these features of science definition nowadays, Aristotle is not a modernscientist. He started with ideas, not hypothesis. For example, he formed theidea of earth being the center of universe just by naked-eye observation. Thatis fine because it is anyway by observation but not by a story of God. The mistakethough was he did not regard it as a hypothesis but directly jumped to theory,meaning he never thought that the ideas might be wrong! Because of this, whathe only needed to do was to argue and reason. The consequence was the formationof a chain of mistakes. It is a greater pity that the fundamentalism waspredominant in ancient Greek, that is, authoritative cannot be challenged. Ptolemyfound that the heavenly bodies were moving at different rates in their orbitsbut the finding was not allowed to exist. He must conform to Aristotelian ideasof uniform circular motion. Democritus (c. 460 – c. 370 BC) stated that theworld is “consists of an infinite number of minute particles”. But Aristotledecided that Democritus was mistaken. Human being had to wait for 2000 years tosee the discovery of the atomic nucleus.

Apparently, Aristotle played part of theroles in the final failure of ancient Greek science. But, I don’t think weshould blame an individual scientist too much. Aristotle is not God but a human.Everybody can make mistakes. The early science had its “inherent weakness”. “Inthe early ages before a large mass of established truth had been accumulated,before instruments had been invented and when discoveries which were to be theinstruments of research were still unsuspected, it almost was impossible forany mind, however great, to give a scientific explanation of any class ofphenomena" (4) Aristotle had no technology to extend the range of hisobservations. So, “Greek triumphs were in the realm of the mind.” (1) I thinkthe most important contribution Aristotle gave to science is that he appliedthe objective scientific methods of observation and reason into detailedscience subjects. “His extant writings span a wide range of disciplines, fromlogic, metaphysics and philosophy of mind, through ethics, political theory,aesthetics and rhetoric, and into such primarily non-philosophical fields asempirical biology where he excelled at detailed plant and animal observationand description.” (5) According to Dunn, Aristotle “was always on the move andcollected information from every source. A practical man and a carefulobserver, he not only sought facts but also methods on how to handle them andput them in order, setting the stage for the development of the scientificmethod many centuries later.” (6)

Aristotle’s studies encompassed the entireworld of science in ancient Greek. Many of his descriptions and classificationsare still important to read today. “The future must issue from seeds sown inthe past.” (4) If it were not Aristotle’s mistakes, the TRUE modern sciencewould have no way to show up. Aristotle is absolutely a true scientist in theearly science world.

Works Cited

(1) Crump, Thomas. “Science and the Ancient World.” A Brief History of Science as Seen throughthe Development of Scientific Instruments. New York: Carroll and Graf,2001.24-34

(2) Suplee, Curt. “Introdution: The Dawn of Inquiry.” From Milstones of Science: The History ofHumankind’s Freatest Ideas. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society,2000. 7 -11

(3) Dampier, William Cecil. AHistory of Science and its Relations with Philosophy and Religion.Cambridge University Press, 1949.

(4) Lewes, George Henry. Aristotle:a chapter from the history of science, including analysis of Aristotle’sscientific writings. London, Smith, Elder and co. 1864

(5) http://www.plato.stanford.edu/StanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy/Aristotle

(6) Dunn, PM. “Aristotle (384-322BC): Philosopher and Scientist ofAncient Greece” Arch Dis Child FetalNeonatal Ed. 2006 Jan; 91(1): F75-F77.




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