ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of natural philosophy and modern natural science in the expansion of human power over nature. It explains a twofold philosophical mission: first, deciding what natural science truly says about nature; second, correcting exaggerated and false interpretations of natural science. In the natural science of Aristotle and Aquinas, the relation between sensible and intelligible is, specified to the species, or species-specific. Species-neutrality, even more than materialist reductionism, is the characteristic of those modern conceptions of nature that pose problems for Thomistic natural law. The modern scientific problems concern mainly performance-enhancing drugs impact the paradigmatic level of human nature. Terrestrial bodies and celestial bodies, despite their strikingly different visible patterns of motion, are not made of different materials, corruptible and incorruptible, as Aristotle and Aquinas mistakenly thought. Thus, Bacon says, If a man be acquainted with the cause of any nature in certain subjects only, his knowledge is imperfect.
