Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T13:57:53.283Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aristotle's Physics: A Physicist's Look

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2015

CARLO ROVELLI Open the ORCID record for CARLO ROVELLI [Opens in a new window]
CARLO ROVELLI*
Affiliation:
AIX MARSEILLE UNIVERSITÉ, MARSEILLE, FRANCE UNIVERSITÉ DE TOULON, GARDE, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

I show that Aristotelian physics is a correct and nonintuitive approximation of Newtonian physics in the suitable domain (motion in fluids) in the same technical sense in which Newton's theory is an approximation of Einstein's theory. Aristotelian physics lasted long not because it became dogma, but because it is a very good, empirically grounded theory. This observation suggests some general considerations on intertheoretical relationships.

Keywords

history of philosophyancient philosophyAristotlephilosophy of sciencephilosophy of physics
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 23 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aristotle. (1990a) ‘Physics’. In The Works of Aristotle, volume 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 257–355.Google Scholar
Aristotle. (1990b) ‘On the Heavens’. In The Works of Aristotle, volume 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 357–405.Google Scholar
Aristotle. (1990c) ‘On Generation and Corruption’. In The Works of Aristotle, volume 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 407–42.Google Scholar
Barbour, Julian B. (1989) Absolute or Relative Motion? New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bodnar, Istvan. (2012) ‘Aristotle's Natural Philosophy.’ In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/aristotle-natphil/.Google Scholar
Bolton, Robert. (1995) ‘Aristotle's Method in Natural Science: Physics I’. In Joudson, L. (ed.), Aristotle's Physics: A Collection of Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 1–30.Google Scholar
Drake, Stillman. (2003) Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography. Mineola, NY: Dover.Google Scholar
Fowler, David H. (1999) The Mathematics of Plato's Academy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galilei, Galileo. (1890a) ‘Letter to Liceti, August 24th, 1640’. In Opere, vol. 18 (Florence: Giunti-Barbera), 232.Google Scholar
Galilei, Galileo. (1890b) ‘Letter to Liceti, September 15th, 1640’. In Opere, vol. 18 (Florence: Giunti-Barbera), 247.Google Scholar
Galilei, Galileo. (1960) ‘De motu antiquiora’. In Drabkin and Drake (eds.), Galilei (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press), 3–131.Google Scholar
Grant, Edward. (2008) Much Ado about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heilbron, John. (2010) Galileo. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moody, Ernest A. (1975) ‘Galileo and Avempace: The Mechanics of the Leaning Tower Experiment’. In Studies in Medieval Philosophy, vol. 12 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), 203–86.Google Scholar
Natali, Carlo. (2014) Aristotele. Rome: Carocci Editore.Google Scholar
Plato. (1993) Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ptolemy. (1990) ‘The Almagest’. In Robert Maynard Hutchins (ed.), Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1–477.Google Scholar
Quine, Willard Van Orman. (1960) Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Russo, Lucio. (2004) The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ugaglia, Monica. (2004) Modelli idrostatici del mondo da Aristotele a Galileo. Rome: Lateran University Press.Google Scholar
Ugaglia, Monica. (2012a) Physica III. Rome: Carocci.Google Scholar
Ugaglia, Monica. (2012b) ‘Peso e peso specifico in Aristotele’. Presented at Science et Représentations: Proceedings of the Colloque International en Mémoire de Pierre Souffrin, Vinci, Biblioteca Leonardiana, September 26–29.Google Scholar
Wieland, Wolfgang. (1970) Die Aristotelische Physik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar