13 ms·

Also worth mentioning: geocentric view was based on Aristotle and not scriptures. My undergraduate was in Theology and graduate degree was Historical Theology.

by baldfat 10y ago

Also worth mentioning: geocentric view was based on Aristotle and not scriptures. My undergraduate was in Theology and graduate degree was Historical Theology. Back then the dominate foundations of Theology in the Church was Plato vs Aristotle and one would consider themselves to be in the camp of one or the other and well Aristotle kind of won the popular vote back in those times. Here is the article on Artistole's thoughts on The Heavens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens "Aristotelian geocentric view that the earth was the center of the universe..." https://books.google.com/books?id=MHnwAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=Aristotelian+ https://books.google.com/books?id=MHnwAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchw...

brlewis 10y ago
I think the "religious" opposition was more based on power politics than on scriptures, faith, etc.
- JauntyHatAngle 10y ago
  I mean, from many people's point of view, it usually is.
elboru 10y ago
Any good book you recommend about these topics?, a lot of things are not clear in my mind, like why is Galileo known for "fighting" the Catholic Church about this, but not Copernicus? I have to admit I haven't gone further than some Wikipedia articles.
- fmstephe 10y ago
  The best article I know if http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... As mentioned by another user below. The story in that link is really a great read. However, I'm unable to tell you how accurate or complete that account is.
- ziotom78 10y ago
  "Blind watchers of the sky", by Rocky Kolb, is an awesome book about the history of astronomy which spends quite a lot of pages about Galileo's trial. It is wonderfully written and full of humor: Kolb is a notable astrophysicist, but also a gifted writer.
acqq 10y ago
No. The church thinkers actually believed what was in the Bible: Augustine, Saint Basil, St. Thomas Aquinas. And the scriptures were made by the people who understood very little about the world, compared to what the current science knows. Therefore the creation is described using the concepts that we today know for sure don't exist. Specifically, in the creation myth: "And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." (Genesis 1:7) The firmament is what people believed separated the water that rains "from above" from what we see as "heaven." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament The Latin translation, accepted by the Church, made in 4th century AD, uses word that is cognate with English "firm." The firmament was believed to be firm, like metals, and the gods "opened" it when it rained, and then closed it back. They didn't even know that the rain is really in the clouds. Their "world model" involved non-moving Earth. Aristotle came later. It's true that Aristotle wrote what he wrote, but his teachings were never a part of the Bible. Edit: kindly see my next answer down the tree if you don't want to read the Wikipedia yourself, the highest church thinkers really supported exactly the model with the firmament, the Earth in the middle, because Bible. Also see my top post here regarding the main article.
- c3534l 10y ago
  No one is saying that the bible has a physically accurate account of the world, only that the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle, and I don't think you'll find many historians arguing otherwise on account of us having writings from them arguing and justifying their positions.
  - acqq 10y ago
    Absolutely not true that "the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle." We talk about the religious view. For the religious view the Bible was actually relevant for the Church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament "Augustine wrote that too much learning had been expended on the nature of the firmament.[9] "We may understand this name as given to indicate not it is motionless but that it is solid." he wrote.[9] Saint Basil argued for a fluid firmament.[9] According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the firmament had a "solid nature" and stood above a "region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed."[10]" 1475: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_of_things1475.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_o... Before the Christians, the Jews also had such interpretations: "According to The Jewish Encyclopedia: The Hebrews regarded the earth as a plain or a hill figured like a hemisphere, swimming on water. Over this is arched the solid vault of heaven. To this vault are fastened the lights, the stars. So slight is this elevation that birds may rise to it and fly along its expanse.[8]"
camelNotation 10y ago
Aristotle won in the west. In Eastern Christendom, Plato won.
- milcron 10y ago
  In the pre-Crusades 'dark ages', Europeans were by-and-large ignorant of Aristotle. Christianity was popular, and the philosophic framework was predominantly Neo-Platonic. Fortunately, Aristotle's work was preserved and commented upon by Islamic scholars. Averroes and Avicenna are two important Islamic scholars who commented on Aristotle. After the Crusades, this was reintroduced to the West. As Aristotelianism was reintroduced to Europe, there was actually an intellectual crisis of sorts, ultimately resolved by St. Aquinas. See 'Scholasticism' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism
  - camelNotation 10y ago
    The legend of early Islamic scholars "preserving human knowledge through the dark ages" is extremely overdone. Eastern Christendom fleeing the encroachment of Islamic invaders (which is largely what reintroduced Aristotle to the West, not Islam) had grappled with the conflict between Platonic and Aristotelian theological influences for centuries prior to the Crusades. The dispute between Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Seminara is the culmination of that conflict. In fact, there arguably wouldn't have even been Crusades if Islamic armies hadn't been actively assaulting Byzantium for centuries. I think it's disingenuous to say that Aquinas resolved anything. He played a role in moving the West towards Aristotle, but that was not exactly an advancement. It'd been dealt with before.
    - acqq 10y ago
      Exactly. The modern myth of Islamic invaders "preserving" anything was just a myth and as far as I know is very recent. The areas that we today identify with this faith had the history of a lot of science work before the invaders came. And the religion was also not that one: From the five holy "sees" only Rome survived the invaders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_see#Listing_of_the_sees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_see#Listing_of_the_s... "Rome, in Italy (Saint Peter and Saint Paul) Constantinople, now Istanbul in present-day Turkey (Saint Andrew) Alexandria, in Egypt (Saint Mark the Evangelist)[14][15][16] Antioch, in present-day Turkey (Saint Peter)[17] Jerusalem, in the Holy Land (Saint Peter and Saint James)[18]"
gumby 10y ago
Aristotle was always such an obvious idiot ("women have fewer teeth than men" is my favorite nonsense) I have always+ wondered why anyone paid attention to him, ever. + Well since I was a teenager anyway
- olavk 10y ago
  Have you actually read any Aristotle? I don't think anybody could read Aristotle and come away with the impression he is an idiot. Obviously he is far from modern levels of scientific knowledge, but that doesn't make him an idiot. He invented multiple branches of science.
  - gumby 10y ago
    It's been 35 years but yes I read and studied Aristotle (& Plato, Epictetus, Sophocles, Euripides, Homer..) in school, in Greek. I still find Platonic constructions useful while I consider, for example Aristotle's moral models simplistic at best and much less insightful than those of his predecessors such as Epicetus). I'm well aware that the moral models of different societies rarely translate well into other societies (not just Bronze Age to present day, but also present day to present day) but I remain unimpressed by Aristotle. I'm not saying I would particularly like Plato as a person, or that I even agree with him on many things, but I find him a wide ranging thinker with much to offer the present. I think Aristotle got a lot of credibility by being seized upon by some early christian thinkers. The world would be in a much better shape had they leant on some of Sophocles' lost plays instead :-).
    - olavk 10y ago
      So, what makes you consider Aristotle an idiot?
      - gumby 10y ago
        Well I described one in the message you replied to: the value of a person is derived solely from their value to the polity (I am glossing massively so no nitpicking on the wording: you can go read yourself as he is widely translated). And I think his approach to observation is lame even when compared to his contemporaries, thus I don't agree with Bluestrike2's defense. And yes my view of him is formed in its context. Classical Greek society was profoundly weird by contemporary western standards, the closest analogy most people might understand might be 8th century islam. I always get a laugh when I see Greece portrayed in film, or cited by a politician: sure, I can and do draw a line philosophical from Athens to London, but but it is almost incomprehensible today without study. Then again I feel the same way when I see physics or computing in film. There's another important piece of context Bluestrike2 mentions though you might have missed it: the modern view of science is very recent the result of several profound revolutions / dislocations / breakthroughs. Apart from the lovely lack of specialization, 2-3K years ago, philosophical (AKA scientific) theories were discussed more in essay form, like literary criticism rather than through reasoned debate, somewhat rigorous analysis and euclidean-style proof from postulate and theorem. I have read some Vedic era Sanskrit disputations on the nature of zero and they suffered from the same thing. And yet, all that being said, I think Aristotle doesn't deserve the level of good press he gets. Though frankly my writing on this thread is more than I have really thought about him in 35 years. He simply doesn't have contemporary impact that many of this predecessors do on my daily life.

by baldfat 10y ago

brlewis 10y ago

I think the "religious" opposition was more based on power politics than on scriptures, faith, etc.

JauntyHatAngle 10y ago
I mean, from many people's point of view, it usually is.

elboru 10y ago

Any good book you recommend about these topics?, a lot of things are not clear in my mind, like why is Galileo known for "fighting" the Catholic Church about this, but not Copernicus? I have to admit I haven't gone further than some Wikipedia articles.

fmstephe 10y ago
The best article I know if http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... As mentioned by another user below. The story in that link is really a great read. However, I'm unable to tell you how accurate or complete that account is.
ziotom78 10y ago
"Blind watchers of the sky", by Rocky Kolb, is an awesome book about the history of astronomy which spends quite a lot of pages about Galileo's trial. It is wonderfully written and full of humor: Kolb is a notable astrophysicist, but also a gifted writer.

acqq 10y ago

No. The church thinkers actually believed what was in the Bible: Augustine, Saint Basil, St. Thomas Aquinas. And the scriptures were made by the people who understood very little about the world, compared to what the current science knows. Therefore the creation is described using the concepts that we today know for sure don't exist. Specifically, in the creation myth: "And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." (Genesis 1:7) The firmament is what people believed separated the water that rains "from above" from what we see as "heaven." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament The Latin translation, accepted by the Church, made in 4th century AD, uses word that is cognate with English "firm." The firmament was believed to be firm, like metals, and the gods "opened" it when it rained, and then closed it back. They didn't even know that the rain is really in the clouds. Their "world model" involved non-moving Earth. Aristotle came later. It's true that Aristotle wrote what he wrote, but his teachings were never a part of the Bible. Edit: kindly see my next answer down the tree if you don't want to read the Wikipedia yourself, the highest church thinkers really supported exactly the model with the firmament, the Earth in the middle, because Bible. Also see my top post here regarding the main article.

c3534l 10y ago
No one is saying that the bible has a physically accurate account of the world, only that the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle, and I don't think you'll find many historians arguing otherwise on account of us having writings from them arguing and justifying their positions.
- acqq 10y ago
  Absolutely not true that "the church at the time based their understanding of the physical universe primarily on Aristotle." We talk about the religious view. For the religious view the Bible was actually relevant for the Church: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament "Augustine wrote that too much learning had been expended on the nature of the firmament.[9] "We may understand this name as given to indicate not it is motionless but that it is solid." he wrote.[9] Saint Basil argued for a fluid firmament.[9] According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the firmament had a "solid nature" and stood above a "region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed."[10]" 1475: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_of_things1475.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament#/media/File:Scheme_o... Before the Christians, the Jews also had such interpretations: "According to The Jewish Encyclopedia: The Hebrews regarded the earth as a plain or a hill figured like a hemisphere, swimming on water. Over this is arched the solid vault of heaven. To this vault are fastened the lights, the stars. So slight is this elevation that birds may rise to it and fly along its expanse.[8]"

camelNotation 10y ago

Aristotle won in the west. In Eastern Christendom, Plato won.

milcron 10y ago
In the pre-Crusades 'dark ages', Europeans were by-and-large ignorant of Aristotle. Christianity was popular, and the philosophic framework was predominantly Neo-Platonic. Fortunately, Aristotle's work was preserved and commented upon by Islamic scholars. Averroes and Avicenna are two important Islamic scholars who commented on Aristotle. After the Crusades, this was reintroduced to the West. As Aristotelianism was reintroduced to Europe, there was actually an intellectual crisis of sorts, ultimately resolved by St. Aquinas. See 'Scholasticism' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism
- camelNotation 10y ago
  The legend of early Islamic scholars "preserving human knowledge through the dark ages" is extremely overdone. Eastern Christendom fleeing the encroachment of Islamic invaders (which is largely what reintroduced Aristotle to the West, not Islam) had grappled with the conflict between Platonic and Aristotelian theological influences for centuries prior to the Crusades. The dispute between Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Seminara is the culmination of that conflict. In fact, there arguably wouldn't have even been Crusades if Islamic armies hadn't been actively assaulting Byzantium for centuries. I think it's disingenuous to say that Aquinas resolved anything. He played a role in moving the West towards Aristotle, but that was not exactly an advancement. It'd been dealt with before.
  - acqq 10y ago
    Exactly. The modern myth of Islamic invaders "preserving" anything was just a myth and as far as I know is very recent. The areas that we today identify with this faith had the history of a lot of science work before the invaders came. And the religion was also not that one: From the five holy "sees" only Rome survived the invaders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_see#Listing_of_the_sees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_see#Listing_of_the_s... "Rome, in Italy (Saint Peter and Saint Paul) Constantinople, now Istanbul in present-day Turkey (Saint Andrew) Alexandria, in Egypt (Saint Mark the Evangelist)[14][15][16] Antioch, in present-day Turkey (Saint Peter)[17] Jerusalem, in the Holy Land (Saint Peter and Saint James)[18]"

gumby 10y ago

Aristotle was always such an obvious idiot ("women have fewer teeth than men" is my favorite nonsense) I have always+ wondered why anyone paid attention to him, ever. + Well since I was a teenager anyway

olavk 10y ago
Have you actually read any Aristotle? I don't think anybody could read Aristotle and come away with the impression he is an idiot. Obviously he is far from modern levels of scientific knowledge, but that doesn't make him an idiot. He invented multiple branches of science.
- gumby 10y ago
  It's been 35 years but yes I read and studied Aristotle (& Plato, Epictetus, Sophocles, Euripides, Homer..) in school, in Greek. I still find Platonic constructions useful while I consider, for example Aristotle's moral models simplistic at best and much less insightful than those of his predecessors such as Epicetus). I'm well aware that the moral models of different societies rarely translate well into other societies (not just Bronze Age to present day, but also present day to present day) but I remain unimpressed by Aristotle. I'm not saying I would particularly like Plato as a person, or that I even agree with him on many things, but I find him a wide ranging thinker with much to offer the present. I think Aristotle got a lot of credibility by being seized upon by some early christian thinkers. The world would be in a much better shape had they leant on some of Sophocles' lost plays instead :-).
  - olavk 10y ago
    So, what makes you consider Aristotle an idiot?
    - gumby 10y ago
      Well I described one in the message you replied to: the value of a person is derived solely from their value to the polity (I am glossing massively so no nitpicking on the wording: you can go read yourself as he is widely translated). And I think his approach to observation is lame even when compared to his contemporaries, thus I don't agree with Bluestrike2's defense. And yes my view of him is formed in its context. Classical Greek society was profoundly weird by contemporary western standards, the closest analogy most people might understand might be 8th century islam. I always get a laugh when I see Greece portrayed in film, or cited by a politician: sure, I can and do draw a line philosophical from Athens to London, but but it is almost incomprehensible today without study. Then again I feel the same way when I see physics or computing in film. There's another important piece of context Bluestrike2 mentions though you might have missed it: the modern view of science is very recent the result of several profound revolutions / dislocations / breakthroughs. Apart from the lovely lack of specialization, 2-3K years ago, philosophical (AKA scientific) theories were discussed more in essay form, like literary criticism rather than through reasoned debate, somewhat rigorous analysis and euclidean-style proof from postulate and theorem. I have read some Vedic era Sanskrit disputations on the nature of zero and they suffered from the same thing. And yet, all that being said, I think Aristotle doesn't deserve the level of good press he gets. Though frankly my writing on this thread is more than I have really thought about him in 35 years. He simply doesn't have contemporary impact that many of this predecessors do on my daily life.