Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003
Did Enlightenment philosophers reject Aristotle?
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
What the men of the Enlightenment were actually rejecting was
Scholasticism, the study and presentation of Aristotle and other
ancient works as if these were sacred and untouchable texts, not to
be either affirmed or denied by factual evidence--like the way they
studied the Bible.
While Western Civilization owes a debt of gratitude to Thomas
Aquinas for re-introducing Aristotle, the association of Aristotle
and the Catholic Church doctrine made questioning anything written
by Aristotle tantamount to heresy. Note that what they did to
Galileo was not only motivated by his implicit rejection of Holy
Scripture but also his explicit rejection of Aristotle's presentation of
the motion of heavenly bodies. With this as a backdrop, it's no
wonder many new and independent thinkers would want to dispense
with "Aristotle."
Note also that it was three hundred years (!) after Aquinas (mid
1200's) before some men even had the courage or the freedom (or
both) to seriously question the tenants of the Church as these related
to Aristotle. I'm speaking of Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, and a few
others; all who made some headway in the late 1500's.
Given the explicit philosophy of some of these men, you might be
inclined to think they were not really men who fashioned the
Enlightenment, if by that one means an acceptance of reason in all
spiritual or intellectual realms. However, it was first necessary to
break the hold of the Scholastics (i.e. the Catholic Church) on
intellectual matters, and Descartes is certainly one of the men who
aided this accomplishment.
Prior to Descartes, it was held to be improper, if not downright
impossible--not to speak of being against the Laws of God and
Man--to mathematically relate incommensurate units of
measurement. This is because the Scholastics took the Ancient
Greek delight in pure ratios (10 feet / 2 feet = 5) and made it into
an object of worship, not to be questioned or expanded upon. We
now call Descartes' process the Cartesian Coordinate System,
whereby it is possible to mathematically related incommensurate
units. So, the next time you think about how many miles per hour
(m/h) you are traveling down the road of life; remember you are
committing heresy according to the Scholastics, and give a nod of
thanks to Descartes.
<HB: 1. I've never heard that fractions or decimals (after they
were invented) were considered "incommensurable." What's your
source for that? I thought incommensurable would be something
like the square root of two, or pi. 2. Descartes was indeed a
contributor to science through his Cartesian co-ordinates, etc.; it's
his philosophy that was a retreat to Augustine. Even there,
however, many scholars believe that his motive was to separate the
physical world from spiritual issues in order to clear the way for
science to deal with the physical world.>
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 22:58:18 -0500 (EST)
Did Enlightenment philosophers reject Aristotle?
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
Harry Binswanger wrote:
> 1. I've never heard that fractions or decimals
> (after they were invented) were considered
> "incommensurable."
The incommensurate would be relating miles and hours, which use
different units of measurement, as in miles per hour(m/h). One can't
actually divide hours into miles, but these can be mathematically
related, as can other incommensurate units of measurements, using
Descartes' method.
<HB: Oh, that's interesting.>
To expand the example, one can bring in other incommensurate
units of measurement, such as: How many gallons of gasoline are
used up to travel 10 miles in half an hour at a temperature of 65
degrees with a head-wind that pushes against the windshield and the
car weighs 2,000 lbs? Notice the units of measurement being
mathematically related: gallons (volume), miles (length), hours
(time), temperature (degrees), pressure (pounds per square inch)
[which in and of itself requires relating incommensurate units], and
weight (pounds). Before Descartes, thinking about such a problem
would have been considered the same thing as doing the impossible.
Today, we take it for granted that a solution to the question is
obtainable, thanks, in part, to Descartes.
Descartes' explicit philosophy was primacy of consciousness, and in
that regard he is not part of the Enlightenment; but I think in some
respects he and other independent thinkers of his time picked up the
Aristotelian method of observation and integration and used it to
further scientific advancement, without realizing that is what they
were doing.
