Aristotelianism

Aristotle s conception [of art]. . . insisted on the distinction between real material change and superficial mimesis. From an Aristotelian perspective, it is one thing to improve upon nature, and quite another to improve nature itself" ... 

Theophrastus.De igne a post-Aristotelian view of the nature of fire, edited. .. by V. Coutant. Edited by V.E. Coutant. New York Humanities P, 1971. 

Furth, M. Transtemporal stability in Aristotelian substances. J Philos 75 (1978) 624- 646. 

Newman, William Royall. "Art, Nature and experiment among some Aristotelian alchemists." In Texts and contexts in ancient and medieval science studies on the occasion of John E. Murdoch s seventieth birthday, eds. Edith Sylla and Michael McVaugh, 305-317. Leiden Brill, 1997. 

Newman, William Royall. "Experimental corpuscular theory in Aristotelian alchemy Geber to Sennert." In Late medieval and early modern corpuscular matter... 

Williams, Steven J. The early circulation of the pseudo Aristotelian "Secret of secrets" in the West the papal and imperial courts. Micrologus 2 (1994) 127-144. 

Odling, M.G." The experimental basis of Robert Boyle s objections to the Aristotelian and alchemical doctrines." MSc thesis, Univ of London, 1928. 

Manzalaoui, M. John Dastin and the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum. Ambix 9, no. 3 (Oct 1961) 166-167. 

From Wikipedia "The oldest documentable source for the [Emerald Tablet] text is the Kitab Sirr al-Asrar, a pseudo-Aristotelian compendium of advice for rulers authored by Abd al- Qadir al-Jilani in around 800 AD. This work was translated into Latin as Secretum Secretorum (The Secret of Secrets) by Johannes "Hispalensis" or Hispaniensis (John of Seville) ca. 1140 and by Philip of Tripoli c. 1243"... 

Dupre, J. (1998), Against reductive explanations of human behaviour, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 72 (Supplementary), 153-171. 

Another reference, this time probably to the calamine process, appears in the works referred to as a pseudo-Aristotelian compilation called On Marvellous Things Heard , probably written in the 3rd Century BC. As translated by Caley (1967 67), the relevant passage runs ... 

JChem.Ed. 59 (1982) 395398, who comments on rational coherence that "Aristotelian physics was highly rational, yet wrong" (398). 

According to E. Stroker [1], it was not the Democritean atomistic theory of matter which was the precursor of the modem Daltonian atomic theory, as generally accepted, but the Aristotelian concept of minima naturalia, developed in the Middle Age. 

In one sense, the creation of alchemy represented a step backward. The Egyptians had known seven metallic elements gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, lead, and mercury, which they associated with the seven planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, respectively). The Greeks, however, failed to recognize them as distinct elements. According to the Aristotelian theory, the metals were mixtures of the traditional four elements. This idea seemed to... 

The Sceptical Chymist, which is written in the form of a dialogue between five people (two of whom mysteriously disappear in the part following the second title page and reappear near the end of the book), is a discussion of the chemical philosophies that prevailed in Boyle s day, the Aristotelian theory of the four elements and Paracelsus s theory of three principles. Boyle discusses them in exhaustive detail in order to foster skepticism concerning them. 

Boyle expounded no alternative theory in The Sceptical Chymist. He concerned himself mainly with fostering skepticism about the Aristotelian and Paracelsian chemical philosophies. But the book is a science classic nevertheless. Little progress could be made in chemistry until those theories were overthrown. To be sure, Boyle failed to accomplish this and belief in the four-element theory, especially, lingered on for quite a long time. However, Boyle showed that it was possible to doubt long-established ideas, thus performing a great service to science. 

In 1661 Robert Boyle published The Sceptical Chymist, a book in which he discussed the criteria by which one can decide whether a substance is or is not a chemical element. He concluded that the four Aristotelian elements and three principles commonly accepted in his time cannot be real chemical elements since they can neither compose nor be... 

In closing this section, remember that Aristotle rejected the concept of atoms. Aristotle could not accept the idea of a void space and believed that nature abhors a vacuum. Furthermore, Aristotle did not consider internal structure. Substances contained their qualities and elements as a homogenous mixture. An Aristotelian would explain the reaction of hydrogen gas and oxygen gas to produce liquid water as... 

Which is why the plan of Etienne de Clave and a handful of other French intellectuals to debate a non-Aristotelian theory of the elements at the house of Parisian nobleman Fran9ois de Soucy in August 1624 was squashed by a parliamentary order, leading to the arrest of its ringleader. 

Even allowing for the ancient and medieval obsession with correspondences among the characteristics and creations of nature, there is clearly something about the four Aristotelian elements that has deep roots in human experience. The Canadian writer Northrop Frye writes The four elements are not a conception of much use to modern chemistry - that is, they are not the elements of nature. But... earth, air, water and fire are still the four elements of imaginative experience, and always will be. ... 

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