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MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 11

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MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 11

Medieval science and Aristotle

  • 13thC movement around Aristotle, and his heretic elements (world-eternity, etc.)
  • Arts Faculties studied a variety of sciences, always based on Aristotelian Logic and Science; unitary nature of their learning [John Murdoch]
  • 19thC: there was no medieval science
  • religion-science conflicts
  • Galileo example [17thC]: heliocentrism, pushes for modern science; had to ‘shut up’

[Duhem] 1277 Condemnation: The Birth of Modern Science

  • basically, Aristotle’s arguments for the necessity of the world (because God cannot create out of necessity) lead to a condemnation of Aristotelian science, freeing up space for non-dogmatic non-Aristotelian thought
  • but this theory is doubted

Aristotelian Cosmology/Physics:

  • Earth at the center, then moon, mercury, venus, sun
  • an orb of fixed stars (unmoving in a human lifetime)
  • eternal universe
  • finite in extension
  • vaccum-less
  • planets move in constant circular motions
  • everything is ordered, searching its natural resting space, etc.

JEAN BURDAIN:

  • French Arts Master; Ethics, Metaphysics, Physics
  • projectile motion
  • Aristotelian motion, locomotion
  • Burdain: the cause of motion needs to be present at every moment of motion
  • movement is qualitative (heat comes from the sun, smt stops being heated the second the Sun goes away, etc.)
  • mediums needed, without them motion would be instant

2 Aristotelian motions:

  • Natural: following the innate trajectory of a thing (chestnut falling down)

  • Violent: compelled into a different direction (chestnut being thrown up)

  • projectile motion is maintained by a void that opens up behind the violent motion chestnut, and which upon its closure propels it forward

  • Burdain thinks this solution to violent motion is BULLSHIT, using empiricism to see it

  • example of the ship: the sailor feels the air in front of him, not BEHIND

  • Burdain’s solution: IMPETUS

  • leftover propulsion imprinted into the object

  • so when I throw a chestnut Im not perpetually affecting it, but affect it once and leave an imprint of my force into it

  • more force = more impetus

  • eventually it diminishes and the object stops

  • freefall explained by impetus, acceleration via impetus imbues it with further and further force, etc.

  • also against Aristotle’s idea that an object moves more swiftly the closer it is to the center of natural motion/the natural position (so the lower the rock is, the more dangerous it is, which is BS, and freefall impetus fixes this)

Ontological nature of the IMPETUS: a quality predisposed to moving a given body, an accidental form

  • this capacity to reject Aristotle supports Duhem’s theory

Rotation of the Earth:

  • central issue of the time (Copernicus, Galilei)
  • Burdain proposes that the Earth rotates around its axis
  • if Earth rotated and everything else was still the world would be the same
  • and this is a simpler explanation
  • this is close to the idea of relativity of motion
  • HOWEVER, he rejects his own proposal!!! we don’t feel air moving around the axis
  • this is a mistake, he doesn’t account for inertia

Note: Newton was thought Aristotelian motion due to the completeness of its account; Copernicus and Galilei were insufficient in their accounts

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