The Aristotelian Worldview
- Pre-Socratic
- Thales of Melitus (ca. 585 B.C.)
- Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 525 B.C.)
- Xenophanes of Colophon (ca. 520 B.C.)
- Classical
- Socrates (d. 399 B.C.)
- Plato (first 1/2 of 4c B.C.)
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
- Hellenistic
- Alexander the Great (d. 323 B.C.)
Plato (ca. 428 - ca. 348 B.C.E.)
allegory of the cave
Problems
- One vs. Many
- Thales - water
- Anaximander - the Boundless
- Anaximenes - air
- Form vs. Substance
- Pythagoreans (mathematics, harmony)
- Permanence vs. Change
- Heraclitus - fire (becoming)
Ionians
Eleatics
- Parmenides
- Zeno
- Achilles & the tortoise (paradox)
Many
- Empedocles - elements
- Democritus - atoms
| Element |
Quality |
Humor |
Character |
|
|
| fire |
warm, dry |
blood |
sanguine |
happy, outgoing |
enthusiastic, social |
| air |
warm, wet |
phlegm |
phlegmatic |
stoic, introverted |
relaxed, peaceful |
| water |
cold, wet |
bile (yellow) |
choleric |
confident, energetic |
arrogant |
| earth |
cold, dry |
bile (black) |
melancholic |
analytical, wise |
depression |
Empedocles (ca. 445 B.C.E.)
Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.E)
place (Great Chain of Being)
earth, sublunary
realm
transmutation
- planets < planaomai (the wanderers)
- zodiac
- ecliptic
Apollonius of Perga (262-190 B.C.E.), Conics
Ptolemy (A.D./C.E. 100-160), Almagest
Euclid, Elements of Geometry (ca. 300 B.C., Alexandria)
- definitions
- postulates
- common assumptions
- theorems
- method of exhaustion
- reduction to the impossible
Archimedes (Syracuse, Sicily, d. 212 B.C.)
- Sand-Reckoner
- Measurement of a Circle
- Mechanics
- law of the lever
- "two magnitudes balance at distances that are reciprocally proportional to the magnitudes"