I’ve always thought that the middle chapters of Plato’s Republic were satire. Are you quite sure that classical Greek philosophers were disdainful of empirical phenomena? How do you explain, e.g., Aristotle’s Physics?
I’ve always thought that the middle chapters of Plato’s Republic were satire.
Nope. Or at least that is an extremely novel interpretation, as far as I know.
Are you quite sure that classical Greek philosophers were disdainful of empirical phenomena? How do you explain, e.g., Aristotle’s Physics?
Also, all his biology. I agree the post is unfair to the ancient Greeks. Aristotle invented observational science. The problem is he didn’t think to run any experiments. He just collected stamps, so to speak.
My understanding is not that he “didn’t think to” run experiments, rather he actively rejected the doing of experiments. The idea is that one can study nature, study things as they naturally are, because that is them acting in accordance with their inherent properties. But it makes no sense to study things in a lab, in an artificial environment. If I launch something out of a cannon then I disturb it from how it inherently acts. Of course something acting against how it inherently acts is pointless to study. Likewise doing any kind of experiment will only tell you about your experiment (at best) and tell you nothing of the natural state of things.
I’ve always thought that the middle chapters of Plato’s Republic were satire. Are you quite sure that classical Greek philosophers were disdainful of empirical phenomena? How do you explain, e.g., Aristotle’s Physics?
Nope. Or at least that is an extremely novel interpretation, as far as I know.
Also, all his biology. I agree the post is unfair to the ancient Greeks. Aristotle invented observational science. The problem is he didn’t think to run any experiments. He just collected stamps, so to speak.
My understanding is not that he “didn’t think to” run experiments, rather he actively rejected the doing of experiments. The idea is that one can study nature, study things as they naturally are, because that is them acting in accordance with their inherent properties. But it makes no sense to study things in a lab, in an artificial environment. If I launch something out of a cannon then I disturb it from how it inherently acts. Of course something acting against how it inherently acts is pointless to study. Likewise doing any kind of experiment will only tell you about your experiment (at best) and tell you nothing of the natural state of things.
Extremely late to the party but that’s the whole idea of ecological validity (which sucks: https://omer.lingsite.org/blogpost-ecological-validity/).
I’ve held the same view, and while it is unpopular it’s not unique.