ABSTRACT
Aristotle’s goal is to explain or understand change, rather than to develop a philosophical system that relegates change to an illusory or secondary status. Aristotelian biology and psychology has an ecological dimension for functions are tied to correlative objects in the world. In contrast, later empiricist theories of perception lost their realist emphasis and substituted a combination of Platonic dualism and materialistic elementarism, the some philosophical extremes Aristotle had tried to avoid. Aristotle’s functional-teleological framework is apparent in his general philosophy of nature and theory of scientific knowledge. Nature involves telos, and a scientific explanation involves understanding this telos. Both Aristotle and James J. Gibson are realists, believing perception yields knowledge about an objective reality. Historically, Plato’s mind-matter dualism had a similar and mutually reinforcing effect upon both the theory of science and theories of perception. If Aristotle wished to avoid the dualism of Plato, equally so he wished to avoid the reductionism of the Greek atomists.
