Metaphysics Aristotelian

Macquer found in the four elements a convenient way to organize the great gains in the empirical knowledge of chemical behavior that had accumulated in the previous fifty years. Macquer s definition of chemistry is consonant with the iatrochemical tradition, but his constituent elements are different, and even though the four elements have names identical with the Aristotelian tradition, they were given an identity that was more operational than metaphysical. 

The foregoing passage is from a treatise on the separation of the elements, (meaning the four Aristotelian elements) from their complexes. The whole discussion is obscure and metaphysical. The interpretation of this passage is none too easy. 

Montgomery Furth, Substance, Form and Psyche. An Aristotelian Metaphysics, (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1988) 14. 

If one insists on calling it a metaphysical position, it must be made clear that it is intended in the literal sense of the word, meaning beyond the physical and not the modern philosophical meaning or indeed the Aristotelian sense of the term, meaning what actually exists fundamentally. As is well known, Aristotle s famous book on the subject merely came... 

By drawing out the implications of Aristotle s distinction between the artificial and the natural, Broadie manages to supply a metaphysical basis to the observation that the Greeks disliked experiment because it introduced artificiality into otherwise natural processes. Indeed, in Broadie s view, avoidance of artificial intervention was a necessary consequence of the Aristotelian conception of natural science. Since Aristotle defined an object s nature as the sum of its regularly occurring properties, any attempt to isolate the object from its normal environment could only interfere with its nature. Since experiment relies on precisely such interference, Broadie asserts, it becomes ipso facto useless in Aristotelian natural science. 

Needham, P. 1996. Aristotelian Chemistry A Prelude to Duhemian Metaphysics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 26 251-269. 

He also retained the idea that the element itself dictated functionality (which is an extension of the Aristotelian notion of fundamental properties of elements). His explanations of heat and light also required something like metaphysical faith for acceptance. His true accomplishments however were that he broke the Aristotelian barrier of four elements, established the conservation of mass as an inviolate law, and confirmed the need for verifiable experimental results as the basis for valid chemical theory. And for one lifetime, perhaps this was enough. 

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