4 ms·

Off topic: why is Aristotle held in such high regard? Isn't he the person who got almost everything wrong?

jhbadger 2y ago
Not really. He certainly got some things wrong like heavier things falling faster than lighter ones, but he wrote on an enormous variety of topics, from physics, to biology, to literature, to ethics. His knowledge was broader than it was deep. His works summarized and synthesized most of what was known in his time, and was useful for centuries afterwards. The problem with Aristotle isn't so much him as the fact that the Catholic Church decided in the Middle Ages that (even though he lived before Christianity) that he was right about everything and that people who felt otherwise were heretics.
- CorrectingYou 2y ago
  > The Church is... le BAD Aristotelian Thomism was not enforced, nor was it agreed upon by theologicians at the time within the Church. Aquinas would only gain more support to his ideas later on, and after his death. But this was never enforced Church teaching that is infallible, it was simply one way (out of many) to do theology and arrive at certain conclusions. No one has ever been labeled a heretic by disagreeing with Aristotelianism.
  - jhbadger 2y ago
    Tommaso Campanella certainly was and was jailed by the Inquisition. Although like Giordano Bruno, it is hard to know exactly which of his many nonstandard beliefs the Church disliked more. Campanella wrote a book attacking Aristotle ("Philosophy demonstrated by the senses"), but he also was into astrology and magic and was also a sort of proto-Marxist with his "City of the Sun" utopia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommaso_Campanella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommaso_Campanella
    - chuckadams 2y ago
      The Inquisition was more about persecuting people who published dissenting works and finding any justification after the fact. Galileo was just repeating Copernicus’s theory, but he used the Vatican’s own press to do it, which made him a target.
      - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
        You must sit in the comfy chair until lunch time with only a cup of coffee at 11.
    - CorrectingYou 2y ago
      [flagged]
- aeneasmackenzie 2y ago
  Aristotle said that denser things fall faster than less dense things and even gave a correct expression for their speed given the limits of his mathematics and notation. https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057 https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057
- t_mann 2y ago
  > He certainly got some things wrong like heavier things falling faster than lighter ones That's wrong only if you stop at Galileo. If you go a bit further, Newton's laws tell you that the gravitational force between earth and a higher-mass object is stronger than with a lower-mass object (specifically, F = G m_1 m_2 / r^2). So the heavier object will hit the ground faster, not by virtue of accelerating faster, but by pulling earth towards it a bit more than the lighter object. Arguably, that's not what Aristotle meant, though, and it's completely negligible for all practical purposes. But then again, once you factor in air drag and especially buoyancy, it's really not as simple as saying that all objects "fall" at the same rate. Unless you want to argue for contrived definitions where you say that perfectly stable floating objects are "falling". It is in fact relatively easy to perform experiments where objects fall at close to zero or even negative speeds (upwards).
hackandthink 2y ago
Aristotle was the smartest guy around. Yes he got almost everything wrong but it took many centuries to find better theories. Carlo Rovelli: "Aristotle's Physics: a Physicist's Look" https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057 https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057

Not really. He certainly got some things wrong like heavier things falling faster than lighter ones, but he wrote on an enormous variety of topics, from physics, to biology, to literature, to ethics. His knowledge was broader than it was deep. His works summarized and synthesized most of what was known in his time, and was useful for centuries afterwards. The problem with Aristotle isn't so much him as the fact that the Catholic Church decided in the Middle Ages that (even though he lived before Christianity) that he was right about everything and that people who felt otherwise were heretics.

CorrectingYou 2y ago
> The Church is... le BAD Aristotelian Thomism was not enforced, nor was it agreed upon by theologicians at the time within the Church. Aquinas would only gain more support to his ideas later on, and after his death. But this was never enforced Church teaching that is infallible, it was simply one way (out of many) to do theology and arrive at certain conclusions. No one has ever been labeled a heretic by disagreeing with Aristotelianism.
- jhbadger 2y ago
  Tommaso Campanella certainly was and was jailed by the Inquisition. Although like Giordano Bruno, it is hard to know exactly which of his many nonstandard beliefs the Church disliked more. Campanella wrote a book attacking Aristotle ("Philosophy demonstrated by the senses"), but he also was into astrology and magic and was also a sort of proto-Marxist with his "City of the Sun" utopia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommaso_Campanella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommaso_Campanella
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    The Inquisition was more about persecuting people who published dissenting works and finding any justification after the fact. Galileo was just repeating Copernicus’s theory, but he used the Vatican’s own press to do it, which made him a target.
    - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
      You must sit in the comfy chair until lunch time with only a cup of coffee at 11.
  - CorrectingYou 2y ago
    [flagged]
aeneasmackenzie 2y ago
Aristotle said that denser things fall faster than less dense things and even gave a correct expression for their speed given the limits of his mathematics and notation. https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057 https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057
t_mann 2y ago
> He certainly got some things wrong like heavier things falling faster than lighter ones That's wrong only if you stop at Galileo. If you go a bit further, Newton's laws tell you that the gravitational force between earth and a higher-mass object is stronger than with a lower-mass object (specifically, F = G m_1 m_2 / r^2). So the heavier object will hit the ground faster, not by virtue of accelerating faster, but by pulling earth towards it a bit more than the lighter object. Arguably, that's not what Aristotle meant, though, and it's completely negligible for all practical purposes. But then again, once you factor in air drag and especially buoyancy, it's really not as simple as saying that all objects "fall" at the same rate. Unless you want to argue for contrived definitions where you say that perfectly stable floating objects are "falling". It is in fact relatively easy to perform experiments where objects fall at close to zero or even negative speeds (upwards).

hackandthink 2y ago

Aristotle was the smartest guy around. Yes he got almost everything wrong but it took many centuries to find better theories. Carlo Rovelli: "Aristotle's Physics: a Physicist's Look" https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057 https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057