When Galileo Galilei succeeded in transforming physics into a quantitative, mathematical science, his effort was the culmination of a tradition that we can trace to the Greeks. At the same time, the success of Galileo's effort represents the end of the fundamentally qualitative approach to nature that is characteristic of Aristotelian natural philosophy. Aristotle's philosophy of nature comprises all of the texts related to the study of nature, the metaphysical principles of nature, change and motion, earth, the heavens, his studies in biology, and the shorter treatises on the senses and perception, all culminating in his major work on the soul.

In the Middle Ages the interpretation of Aristotle’s natural philosophy continued the classical tradition of interpretation in the context of Peripatetic, Neoplatonic, Stoic, Christian, Islamic, and other agendas. Although there were scholars who contributed to the exact sciences, in texts that fit in the tradition of medieval natural philosophy we find for the most part philosophical discussions of texts, typically of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, Aristotle’s Physics, and of other treatises by Aristotle as well as of the commentaries of Averroes. William of Ockham wrote two very long texts on natural philosophy, two shorter accounts, and numerous comments dealing with questions on natural philosophy in his massive Commentary on the Sentences. Yet, even when he shows himself to have some familiarity with a specific discipline (as in theories of vision), his use of it tends to be sketchy and highly selective.