ABSTRACT
Aristotle considered his lectures on natural philosophy and natural science a unity (cf. Aristot. Meteor. 338 a 20 ff.). The Physics deals with the fundamental principles, the De caelo with cosmology and astronomy, the De generatione et corruptione with the four elements, and the Meteorologica with the region between the moon and the earth. Last in the series comes the treatment of animals-in other words, the biological writings. Halfway outside it stands the essay on the human soul (the De anima with the appendices of the Parva naturalia). Such a programme implies not only that within the same systematic framework one moves from the more to the less general, but also that the focus is shifted from philosophical to scientific reflection. The Physics is pure natural philosophy, the De caelo and the De generatione et corruptione are philosophical deliberations that presuppose Aristotle’s cosmology and his theory of the elements; the biological writings are the only ones that rest on systematic observation. It has quite often been maintained that thanks to his enormous authority Aristotle made science come to a stand-still for almost 2000 years: how much better had it not been if the tradition from Democritus had been allowed to continue?—and occasionally he is somewhat resentfully blamed for not taking Galileo and Newton into account. Classical physics arose from an encounter with Aristotelianism; but Aristotelianism and Aristotle are not necessarily the same. Whenever basic Aristotelian concepts-form, matter, entelechy, etc.—are understood as ‘forces’ that ‘work’ as independent entities in the thing itself and not as a descriptive conceptual apparatus, and whenever the Aristotelian causes are understood as causal thinking in the modern sense and not as structural thinking, Aristotle’s intentions are clearly misapprehended. His natural philosophy is not merely out-dated ‘natural science’; his is another project: to discover concepts that make possible a description of the world as it appears phenomenologically to immediate observation. Planned experiments under idealizedartificial-conditions with a view to establishing exact natural laws and predictions of future events or possible mastery of nature lie not only beyond what is possible for him but are also beyond his aim. Yet his basic position in no way precludes systematized observation-as can be seen clearly in the biological writings, which compel the admiration also of a modern historian of science. While most of his other scientific views can be dismissed as erroneous, his reflections and his arguments within natural philosophy are not for that reason without interest as philosophy. The Physics is a seminal work of natural philosophy which cannot for any reason be assigned to a collection of curios in the history of science.
