Aristotelianism – The Old Order.
The Scientific Revolution can be viewed as the result of conscious innovation against
Aristotelianism and its associated scholasticism. This can be seen in the antiAristotelian ethos present in contemporary literature such as Bacon’s “New Organon”
(as a replacement of Aristotle’s original Organon), at a general level and in the
dialogues of Galileo (his reference to “Simplicio”). But is this characterisation
correct? Why did Aristotelians adopt the views they did and maintain them in the face
of attack? Why did anti-Aristotelians, like Bacon, object so strongly if Aristotelianism
was so obviously wrong? It is because Aristotelianism was incredibly tenacious. Part
of the reason for this was the innovative scientific work forced on to Aristotelianism
in the middle ages. This altered the medieval Aristotelianism to be found in the
universities, but did not affect the scholastic Aristotelian tradition found at an
elementary level, which was in a much cruder and simplistic form. Historians looking
at this crude scholasticism will inevitably draw the wrong conclusion regarding the
reasons for Aristotelianism`s persistence.
Aristotelianism saw a new lease of life in the renaissance as a result of a humanist
revival and the discovery of better texts of the original Aristotle in Greek and not the
usual Latin translations. These original texts highlighted the relationship of Aristotle
with his contemporaries and encouraged an openness and susceptibility for
Aristotelianism to new ideas. These new ideas were adapted to an Aristotelian
framework in order that they did not compromise it. For example William Harvey
(who was a committed Aristotelian) can be argued to have derived his ideas of
circulation of the blood from Aristotle’s ideas of circularity of motion and his
functionalist view of the body. This revival in interest in the corpus of Aristotelian
knowledge resulted in a lively debate over the new sciences. Copernicus static sun
and heliocentric universe still retained the idea of the Earth, although moving round
the Sun, as being at the centre of the universe. Although this conflicted with
Aristotelian cosmology with respect to geo-centrism and the idea of concentric
spheres it also remained based on Aristotle’s logic with regard to the weight of the
“elements”. William Gilbert’s ideas on magnetism conceived properties ignored by
Aristotle but nevertheless Aristotelians attempted to bolt them on to the Aristotelian
framework.
This flexibility of Aristotelianism complemented its comprehensiveness. Aristotle’s
view of the natural world was based on the concept of four elements which affected
everything in the World and incorporated the idea of “contraries”, material less pure
than the elements. These resulted in the existence of a state of constant change which
included both decay and generation, decay being seen as a process of drying and a
consequence of elements attempting to reach their natural place. In addition Aristotle
emphasised the “form” or character of a thing, such as “maleness” or “horseness”
such that everything was made up of not just matter. The new scientists regarded
these explanations as meaningless and as preventing a true view of the world. Robert
Boyle attacked these ideas of forms and qualities in his attempts at a mechanical
explanation for events. The Aristotelian view as to why snow was white was that it
had the quality of whiteness – it dazzles the eyes because that is what it does. Boyle
argued that these were not explanations that could be used to explain.
The range of Aristotelianism led to a system of incredibly complex inter-relations.
This had been added to over time by, among other Ptolemy and in the middle-ages by
commentaries on Aristotle which had attempted to elaborate on Aristotle to provide
additional observations and to fill in gaps in understanding caused by the original
texts. Consequently Aristotelianism came to embody a complete system which
provided justification for is strength, logical consistency and reasoning. It came to be
accepted that it would require a new and complete system (such as Descartes in order
to replace it, and into which new data could be assimilated. Aristotelianism was
unhappy with incorporating discrete facts, partly as a result of its subordination of
empirical data to logic and reasoning. Aristotelianism was founded on what can be
expected as a result of reasoning (thought experiment) rather than what is observed.
Its assimilation into Christian theology strengthened its appeal to authority reflected
in the views of the Bible with regard to a static Earth, to the dependence on the value
of “traditional” commentaries and to the unquestioning acceptance of the views of
Aristotle himself.
The Achilles heal in the Aristotelian system was its claims to account for observed
phenomena. As increasing amounts of data and evidence came to light as a result of
discoveries in the new world, telescopes etc the plausibility of the Aristotelian system
came under increasing threat. Coupled with a shift in peoples expectations the
Aristotelian system became increasingly less able to meet peoples needs.