Talk:Aristotelian physics

message: This article desperately needs references to the Condemnations of 1210-1277, without which it seems like pretty shoddy work.
ghh 15:20, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: (random heading)

message: When things fall: "The speed of this motion was thought to be proportional to the mass of the object." Where does Aristotle state this? Hexmaster (talk) 15:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, found it: "a little bit of earth, let loose in mid-air moves and will not stay still, and more there is of it the faster it moves" (On the Heavens, book 2). Very well. :-) Hexmaster (talk) 15:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wait. That says that the speed monotonically increases with mass, but doesn't imply that it's necessarily proportional... in fact, Aristotle would be CORRECT in saying that heavier objects fall faster to a certain extent (because of air resistance, they have higher acceleration and higher terminal velocity). 24.34.94.195 (talk) 17:20, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gravity 

message: Somebody added this to the lead:
::Aristotle's principles were difficult to disprove merely through casual everyday observation, but later development of the scientific method challenged his views with experiments, careful measurement, and more advanced technology such as the telescope and vacuum pump.
This seems completely inaccurate. The principles of Aristotelian physics were easy to disprove through casual everyday observation. That heavy and light objects fall at the same rate was probably discovered hundreds of times throughout history. That the earth revolves was also probably guessed at by hundreds of people. But the power structure of European society at the time prevented such discoveries from spreading.
Aristotle's work is shoddy and fraudulent, not approximate and pretty good.Likebox (talk) 20:38, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  About this addition: 

message: I take it as a worrying sign that this article could not even correctly state in its header (see my recent edit) what it was about.  Physics is not the focus of Physics (Aristotle), which is not surprising because Aristotle's physika means something that has little to do with physics.  I have no objection to an article which ferrets out those Aristotelian answers to questions we now answer with physics and uses reliable sources to talk about how they have been compared, generally of course to Aristotle's disadvantage.  But Likebox's proclamations about "bullshit" here indicate that s/he is not likely to appreciate the reason Aristotle continues to be read and studied by philosophers: he has much more (useful) to say about philosophical puzzles that don't reduce to answers given in science textbooks than about mechanics, etc.: his treatises' theorization of biological phenomena is generally more important than what they have to say about physical phenomena, and works like Physics and On the Soul are still read widely (as opposed to say History of Animals, which is of more antiquarian interest) because many of the problems Aristotle discussed, e.g. Life#Hylomorphism and philosophy of mind, are still regarded as current philosophical problems, discussions to which a good understanding of Aristotle still has something to contribute.  This is all verifiable.
In sum, Aristotelian and Medieval theories of acceleration, etc., are of antiquarian interest, and they have almost nothing to do with the reasons why philosophers study Physics (Aristotle).  This article, then, is of mainly antiquarian interest (obsolete scientific theories).  It needs to exercise greater care in specifying and clarifying exactly how narrow and antiquarian its focus is.  What is not acceptable is if Aristotle's philosophical thought gets lumped in with his obsolete scientific theories.  This flies in the face of what the scholarly discipline of philosophy holds.  Now, I can understand if some scientists (or enthusiasts of science who edit Wikipedia) simply do not get the alien discipline of philosophy.  But that doesn't mean we're allowed to blank philosophy of mind and replace it with "This is a bullshit way of pretending to answer questions that only neuroscience will ever answer!" or to pretend that theories of abiogenesis have deprived earlier attempts to grapple with the nature of living matter (including Aristotle's) of their value.
I am going to rest content with fixing the header and lead sentence so that they are not in flagrant error.  But I hope those editors who are actually working on the content of the article will be mindful of the need to make sure it doesn't lapse into an immature denunciation of ideas that (A) have nothing to do with physics and often nothing to do with modern experimental science of any kind, (B) are widely granted contemporary relevance and interest by reliable sources in the discipline that gets to decide what is real philosophy vs. junk philosophy (namely, philosophy), just as physics gets to decide what is real physics vs. junk physics.  (Of course there will always be disagreements in both disciplines.)
The slight concern I have here (please don't mistake it for an accusation) is that there is a tendency to make a WP:POVFORK version of the article that should exist on Aristotle's philosophy of nature.  This would be exactly as inappropriate as making a POV-fork version of a scientific topic, devoted to explaining how unsatisfactory scientific publications and theories are from the point of view of philosophy.  The title Aristotelian physics is unfortunate and misleading, since this article discusses only a very narrow slice of what an expert in "Aristotelian physics" would consider that topic to mean.
The unfortunate problem that makes fixing this so difficult is that, though there are clear examples on either side, it is in practice extremely difficult to draw a bright line between "science" and "philosophy" in this area (much of the most respected work about the nature of modern science actually emphasizes similar problems).  While grappling with that problem, let's make a good faith effort not to have the physics textbook's verdict confused with the modern philosopher's verdict on many questions that properly belong much more to the latter to adjudicate than the former.  Wareh (talk) 19:14, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah yeah. There is physics, and then there is this bullshit which Aristotle was pushing, which displaced real physics in his time and for thousands of years later. The fact that modern philosophers are still enamored of this crap does not mean we don't treat it fairly--- I described Aristotle's physics as it was.Likebox (talk) 13:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

text: Dear Wareh, thank you: you are right that Aristotelian physics is not so much about what we today call physics (the mathematical-empirical examination of the inanimate world), but more a study of what we tend to call nature: the living world, that is necessarily more teleological than the inanimate world. Likebox, on queue, puts his blissful ignorance and bigotry on display--as dependable as Old Faithful: somehow name-calling is supposed to be an adequate substitute for reasoned argumentation--or even giving a fair reading to the works he is supposedly criticizing. Furthermore he overlooks the fact that Aristotle died in 322 BC--a pretty airtight alibi against doing anything good or bad in the world for a thousand years. This article, an antiquated piece of positivist propaganda, would be laughable were it not for the fact that widespread ignorance of the necessarily philosophical underpinnings of science (such as the demarcation problem) gives it a plausibility it does not deserve. JKeck (talk) 01:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confused premise of article? 

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In contrast to Aristotelian Physics, the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanics was about machines:
In the Physica, Aristotle had established the general principles of motion and change that
govern all natural bodies; in his more specific natural works – such as De caelo, De generatione
et corruptione, and the various works De animalibus – Aristotle applied these principles to
natural changes of all kinds occurring in animate and inanimate bodies: generation, growth, the
fall of heavy bodies, and the motions of the stars. But inevitably, within the context of natural
philosophy, there also arose questions concerning unnatural or forced motions, such as the
motion of projectiles and in general the changes effected by men through the various arts. Partly
this was because Aristotle used forced motions and in general the changes produced by art as 
analogies in order to discover the less obvious causes of natural motions; and partly it was
because natural and forced motions are often inextricably combined in daily experience.
In contrast to natural philosophy, the ancient art or science of mechanics was notable for
working against or at least outside of nature to effect motion for the use and benefit of mankind.
This, at least, was the view taken in the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanica ("Questions of
Mechanics" or "Mechanical Problems") (fourth century BC), the earliest-known theoretical
treatment of machines and the earliest attempt to reduce their operations to a single principle. In
its introduction, the Mechanica suggested that machines of all sorts work against or outside of
nature in order to effect changes that are of benefit to men. A machine that moves a large weight
with a small power, for example, produces an effect for human benefit, and this effect is not
natural, for it violates the Aristotelian physical assumption that a moving power must be greater
than the weight it moves. Mechanics and physics thus seem to be in conflict.
People have been linking to this article for Aristotelian Physics, any specifics on the natural sciences it lacks should be added. Redirecting its 127 links to  isn't right. Only 3 articles link here now.
I'm wasn't unsympathetic to a rename but I couldn't think of a better one... I think this article stands its best chance for improvement under its former name. Sorry I didn't chime in sooner about the rename/hatenote... Perhaps I could I interest you in the more excruciating aches and pains this article has to offer? LOL
I'd be happy to add the list you redirected to. I didn't review the article for completeness. I just corrected what was already there and added a little more. I know its missing anima, at least... I do have a better and more concise list of concepts that could be paraphrased to replace the "bold points". Then they could be refractored into the article structure, maybe using refs/notes back to the concepts to qualify ambiguous science terms... Or, that's what I'd like to work on anyway. I have some good sources for the proper role of Mathematics/Astronomy, to "save the appearances", as well as some quotes from Metereology. Also, I found a cool source from Thomas Kuhn; about a physicist explaining why he had always misinterpreted Aristotle and how that changed for him.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 19:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Not so good

message: As noted above, if this page should be moved back to "Aristotelian physics" (and a normal user can't do it) you can request admin attention at WP:RM. I assume some of the recent cleanup is related to Jagged 85 (Aristotelian physics is listed at Cleanup4). If so, please see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup and use at least one edit summary with a link to that page. That's important for other editors who may wonder why all the changes were made in a year or two. Johnuniq (talk) 01:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly just one edit from a few days ago marked "not in source". Actually, the material on Islamic science and medieval Aristotelianism was not reviewed. We might need some help with that, (I'm not familiar enough with the material myself), but I'll take a look at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup and link to it in an edit summary. Thx—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 19:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: I read this article by Christopher Decaen some time ago and it goes some distance to vindicating Aristotle's notion of aether. You might consider including some of its ideas in the interest of completeness and neutrality. JKeck (talk) 01:01, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, what a great article. I'd definitely like to include it here; also as a link, at least, at luminiferous aether. Thanks.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 23:16, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aristotle's Aether in Modern Physics 

message: Unless I'm mistaken, in the part about motion, "consistent" should be replaced by "inconsistent". Aristotle states that a fluid exerts friction on an object, thus slowing it down, so that's contradictory with the fact that the medium "permits" the motion. And indeed it is the opposite : when you throw a ball, the depression is in front of the ball, not in the back.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edouardh (talk • contribs) 14:30, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Adherence rather than friction, no? For Aristotle, the engulfing medium is what accounts for the notion of place (not "space"), so it's not surprising that motion in terms of place depends on the medium. It's not entirely dissimilar to his account of heaviness and buoyancy but, whether or not it's what he really meant, it could be taken as a crude account of gliding, or even a propagating wave… so it's not contradictory. (Yes, he's suggesting that the density in front is communicated to the rarity in back; there's no need to try and "make it work", as if by suction).—Machine Elf 1735 18:53, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistency 

message: Regarding the  edit with summary: 
I agree with the edit  that "pseudoscience" is a misnomer. Further, "general principles of change" is much too broad for "claims… like falling bodies", charitably understood. It accounts for any category of change (including that of quantity) vis-à-vis substance. What's not mentioned here is the marginalization of terminal velocity, but clearly "pseudoscience" has never been a term with which Aristotelian physics is to be tarred. In fact, a naïve account of scientific revolution considers it popper science, (er… proper, rather). In any case, it predates these debates by millenia, so perhaps rehearsing them here won't be necessary, however underrepresented one believes their point of view has been.—Machine Elf 1735 08:40, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV and pseudoscience 

message: Additional information will be helpful on Aristotelian motion even though I have added some more information. Comparing Aristotle's view with other contemporaries like Galileo will also make this section of the article better.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thywob (talk • contribs) 17:13, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  On Aristotelian motion 

message: The phases of Mercury are mentioned in the article as part of Galileo's attack on Aristotle. A nearly full set of phases of Mercury was first seen by Zupi in 1639, not by Galileo. Mercury's phases might have been suspected before then. This suspicion is hardly actual disproof of Aristotle or anyone else.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.131.249.221 (talk) 09:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Harriot noted that the moon's surface was irregular. This was against Aristotle's theory and four months before Galileo's similar observations of the moon.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.131.249.221 (talk) 09:55, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note 

message: This is a bit weird; not least because "astronomy" isn't nominally part of A's physics, at least as described by the article's "concepts" section William M. Connolley (talk) 20:08, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  In Europe, Aristotle's theory was first convincingly discredited by Galileo's studies... 

message: The topic is not very clear. First, there is Aristotle's work, "Physics," and its contents. Then there is the extension of some of these topics into other works by Aristotle. Then, there is a follow up of these topics into later times. Also, there is an evaluation of Aristotle with regard to these topics. When we get into the evaluations of modern scientists of Aristotle, which are in no way either comprehensible or objective, we trail off into the infinite bellowing all the while like cattle. Mooo (excuse me). Mooo, I says. I suggest we follow the traditional method in classics. This should be an article on Aristotle's work. What does Aristotle say and what does he mean? I think you will find that is more than enough for one article, probably many. How do we get in that direction? We have to move in that direction. I have read most of this whole spiteful talk page. Mooo, I says. We need Aristotle, not spite. How can you be critical of Aristotle when you have no idea of what he says? Oh, as a sort of aside, all that balleyhoo (ralley balley) about him not being an experimentalist or a field scientist is just plain wrong. What do you think the school was doing? Sad to say, most of that work was lost. It isn't Aristotle's fault that he had no telescope anyway. For all the modern braggadocio about our instrumentation and our methods, we still don't know the nature of the universe. So, let's stick to Aristotle's physics. I will be making a few small changes in that direction from time to time.Botteville (talk) 06:43, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Typically of me, I wrote the above without checking out the entire situation. There IS an article on the work, physics. It is meant to be distinguished from this topic, which is about some sort of specificity, Aristotelian physics. I question whether there is such a thing as described here. Such a thing would have to appear in works of that title or on that subject not to be original research. But then, we would have to distinguish between Aristotle's work, Physics, and the category, Aristotelian physics. I'm not sure that is real. That there is such a straw man is probably true and the article might be about the straw man. I think you have to use someone's definition of Aristotelian physics. So, I still question the topic. I am, however, moving over to the other article. It might be some time before I can go over this one. Meanwhile it has the tag to alert the public. I'm going now. See you there.Botteville (talk) 07:29, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Topic, the topic 

message: It’s worth mentioning Aristotle considered the theory of natural selection, cf pg1 Origin of Species.  Tysonmidboe (talk) 10:13, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Certainly not in an article on his physics. It is however mentioned elsewhere. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:31, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biology 

message: The methods section - or is it the principles section - is poor. Because it doesn't tell us what his methods (or principles) were. It says While consistent with common human experience, Aristotle's principles were not based on controlled, quantitative experiments but that's no use. A's method was, what? Looking out of his window and making shit up? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Methods section