Enlightenment science was successful because it went with atomism as it metaphysical model, and the results of this simplification of causal modelling were remarkable. Being anti-Aristotelian - in the sense of rejecting the holism of four cause thinking, or the supposed impossibility of an empty and a-causal void - was a rewarding move.

So in a general way, Aristotle became the scholastic bogeyman, the dominant scientist of the previous generations, that the enlightenment scientists had to leave clearly behind.

But I was deeply involved with theoretical biology, complexity and hierarchy theorists in the 90s. And everyone knew all about Aristotelian metaphysics. So it was mainstream commonsense to those having to work on the metaphysics of life science. It would be embarrassing not to be able to articulate the parallels.

So for system thinkers in contemporary science, Aristotle is important as a contrast to the standard issue causal reduction of atomism. But for a lot of science, Aristotle still would serve as a useful cultural boundary marker between the crazy scholastics and the sensible Enlightenment dudes.

In one of the first lectures I attended, Alan Chalmers (whose book What is this Thing called Science? is a standard text in philosophy of science) told the story of how, in medieval times, a group of monks had a debate about how many teeth a horse had. They all scurried off to the library to consult Aristotle, but the information wasn't to be found there. When one fellow said 'why don't we go and look at a horse?' he was ridiculed for impertinence. If it wasn't in Aristotle, the thinking went, then it couldn't be known. It might be a bit of a caricature, but it does convey something of the attitude.

Galileo showed that many of the basic assumptions of Aristotelian physics were simply incorrect, presumably because many had never been subjected to experiment but were simply the consequence of what Aristotle thought ought to be so. The classical schoolbook example is Galileo's demonstration that different weights all accelerate at the same rate.

But for medieval culture, Aristotelian science was inextricably bound up with Ptolemy and the 'sacred cosmology' which saw the 'super-lunary' sphere as being literally the abode of God. (Which is why supernovae and comets were regarded with superstitious awe, as the Heavens were supposed to be changeless.)

So a lot of the dynamic of the advent of modernity was the revolutionary break with the medieval cosmology and science to which Aristotle was central (although it should also be borne in mind that Aristotle himself had only been re-discovered in around the 10thc after having been preserved by the Muslims and was considered radical at the time of his re-discovery.)

But all that said, there has been considerable re-assessment of the important of Aristotle and medieval philosophy in general, in the formation of the modern age. One of the good books on that is James Hannam's God's Philosophers, a study of how the work of medieval science were seminal in modern science. And also, I would like to think that Aristotle himself had the kind of outlook that, had he been around long enough, would have been more than willing to revise and update his own fundamental ideas, as he always emphasised learning by observation and practical wisdom. The fact that his ideas became 'frozen in time', so to speak, is one of the reasons why he became the source of dogmatism that is often associated with his thought. Besides there is a lot of perennial value in his works on philosophy, ethics and metaphysics.

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If you keep rewriting your question, you will surely arrive at the answer you seek. :)

Aristotle: dogma, science, or description? Relevant or mere interesting history? — tim wood

If scientists were asked to vote on the most scientific philosopher of ancient times, do you think Aristotle would get top place?

But if you did a citation search on current journal articles, would you expect a work of Aristotle to be touted as a key reference?

C'mon. Ask yourself what it is that actually concerns you here? Do you think that Arisototelian metaphysics is so obsolete as to have no contemporary relevance?

If that is your actual charge, we can then consider the metaphysics that underpins current scientific speculation. As I have said, broadly that divides into atomism and holism. If you are a holist, then absolutely you will be pushing Aristotle ahead of Democritus. And an atomist, the reverse.

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My agenda is simply to learn whether anyone who cites Aristotle as a final authority in modern science should, may, must, or should not be taken seriously. — tim wood

Huh? Science doesn't operate by citing ultimate authorities. You must be thinking of the doctrinal approach taken by the Church in medieval times.

Is this the basis of your problem with Aristotle - that the scholastics did treat him as a final authority on matters of science, hence a basic animus against Aristotle ought to remain within contemporary science?

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I simply wonder how much of his thinking is immediately relevant to any modern science. — tim wood

Do you then simply believe that it is distantly relevant? Could that be a thing?

But as a practicing attorney in a court case does not open - or close - his argument with a reading of Magna Carta, so I imagine that scientists do not consult their Aristotle to do their work. — tim wood

Again, who do you think would claim this is the case? Surely you realise that science - at its bleeding edge - is a matter of current peer review.

A lawyer would be able to appeal to precedent in fact. If some judge made a ruling, that would have to be followed or over-turned. It wouldn't matter how far back the precedent was established. But of course, society moves on, and so there are plenty of ancient rulings and laws on the books that would get knocked down pretty easily if brought to the attention of a contemporary peer review.

But for science, as it is actually in the process of being done, the very logic of a process of creative invention and discovery is to be able to place that work in its currently most meaningful context. You paint a very strange picture of doing science where practitioners would be consulting existing wisdom rather than trying to flag how they are rewriting the books by making a significant departure from that.

In practice, you have to demonstrate your relevance within some highly localised scientific conversation. There is some small community of peers. You are advancing that body of knowledge by asking its next natural question. So much more than a lawyer, you are directly addressing a contemporary audience who will all have a view. It is more equivalent to standing before the jury than poring over ancient law rulings.

I think for present purpose yeses or nos will do. — tim wood

Yeah, but I've shown you were merely asking a loaded question. And - given your apparent love of lawyering - you will know that trying to slip in a yes/no query along the lines of "Have you stopped beating your wife?" is going to be ruled inadmissable by any competent judge.

My view is different to Apokrisis, although in agreement in some respects. But I've belatedly discovered Aristotle and the broader Platonist tradition through the lens of intellectual history rather than science per se. I view modern science as being fantastically powerful in some ways - but also intellectually bankrupt in other ways.

I think there was an insight in the Aristotelian tradition, broadly conceived, that really did constitute 'wisdom', sapience, in a way that is nowadays quite difficult to even fathom - in other words, we have lost all sense of what that kind of wisdom constituted. Admittedly, approaching it through Aristotle is actually an extremely cumbersome way of going about it, wrapped as it is in layers of often-confusing verbiage (hence my appreciation of Zen which cuts to the quick.)

But at the same time, I have come to realise that the fundamental conceptions of Platonist philosophy - form and substance, matter and causation, and many other basic ideas - were absolutely indispensable for the foundation of modern science, and, arguably, why science developed as it did in Europe, and not in India or China (which were aeons ahead of Europe two millennia ago). That also is the contention of the Catholic polymath, Stanley Jaki, a Benedictine monk who wrote many books on the relationship of religion and science. He argues that only Christianity could have given rise to modern science - the diametrically opposite view to the populist atheism that posits an irresolvable conflict between science and religion. (There's a good abstract here.)

Anyway I've been casually interacting about all of these subjects on this and other forums for years, so I am really intending to try and study it in more depth (although I also find the prospect daunting, as it's supremely useless and completely impractical.)

Admittedly, approaching it through Aristotle is actually an extremely cumbersome way of going about it, wrapped as it is in layers of often-confusing verbiage (hence my appreciation of Zen which cuts to the quick.) — Wayfarer

One of the mistakes would be to expect Aristotle to be giving a single dumbed down answer. He rather systematically explored the two key alternatives - reductionist atomism and holistic hylomorphism. So he remains relevant in that he attempted a complete working through of the metaphysical possibilities.

It was thought in action in his day. And the surprise is how little has changed in terms of how to frame the business of doing metaphysics.

But at the same time, I have come to realise that the fundamental conceptions of Platonist philosophy - form and substance, matter and causation, and many other basic ideas - were absolutely indispensable for the foundation of modern science, and, arguably, why science developed as it did in Europe, and not in India or China (which were aeons ahead of Europe two millennia ago). — Wayfarer

This is bollocks. Aristotle set the tone (as did Anaximander before him) by talking an immanent and self-organising view of nature. Both were strong on the observational basis of belief, even as they also stressed the ontological status of rational order in the cosmos. So the scientific worldview grew out of a rationality about actual nature.

Now mathematics was also significant in that it showed rationality itself could be understood as a science too - a science of patterns. So once metaphysics generalised nature in terms of parts in relations, it could make a clear distinction between material parts and formal relations. That was the right way to break nature apart so its essential workings could be modelled.

But you are conflating the usefulness of a science of patterns with a nascent dualism of mind and world. This was the distinctive religious turn taken by the Christian church as it adopted Platonism for its theistic metaphysics. The line was blurry when theism was not metaphysical. Folk just believed in a generalised undifferentiated animism. And then Platonism became the conceptual wedge to separate a rational soul from a corrupted world. It was a huge social con trick.

So science flows on from philosophical naturalism - the recognition that nature is divided into matter and form ... in some useful sense ... but is also still an immanent unity. Ancient Greek philosophy laid the rules of this game with Aristotle the pivotal figure in his ability to play off atomism against holism, as well as providing the "deep maths" of logic. He went beyond mere arithmetic and geometry.

Then Plato is who you gravitate towards if you are instead going in the other direction of seeking supernatural accounts of the human condition.

Nature isn't large enough to explain our wondrousness. We need a more transcendental justification for our Being! How else would we see things as they really are, just using our minds?

Of course, Plato himself was also more subtle, more willing to canvas the variety of metaphysical alternatives. But since we are dealing in caricatures here....

One of the mistakes would be to expect Aristotle to be giving a single dumbed down answer. — apokrisis

Yes, it would be a mistake, and one I would never expect Aristotle to make.

So science flows on from philosophical naturalism - the recognition that nature is divided into matter and form ... in some useful sense ... but is also still an immanent unity. — apokrisis

I don't believe that for a moment. I think that why science is currently embroiled in what Jim Baggott calls 'fairytale physics' is precisely the complete and total absence of an 'immanent unity'.

I think that why science is currently embroiled in what Jim Baggott calls 'fairytale physics' is precisely the complete and total absence of an 'immanent unity'. — Wayfarer

Well first, very little of science is currently embroiled in string theory or multiverse speculation. It's a small, if prestigious, field.

And second, you are now talking about physics having reached the edge of physical existence so far as it could possibly matter. If it ain't measurable, that means it ultimately can't make a difference what we say we believe. So you are simply accepting that physics has pretty much done its whole job of arriving at a single unifying theory of nature - so far as that was pragmatically possible.

You are complaining that physics has been so successful, the only place left to go is on into frank metaphysical speculation.

So the Baggotts of this world are complaining about an excessive exhuberance - at the tax-payers expense - for investing brains and money in "beyond the standard model" physics. Real scientists ought to get on with improving their models in other more immediately fruitful areas - like biology, psychology, or the humanities in general.

The complaint isn't that physics didn't in the end work or that it was running down the wrong track in its wedding of the rational and the empirical.

Don't you see the confusion of your position on this yet? You say Platonism is what its about, and then exhibit A for your claims of Scientism are all those physicists who say they are quite happy being Platonists if that is all that is left.

Baggott is the argument that empiricists use against that "too metaphysical" attitude. String theorists and multiverse speculators are being caned for abandoning empiricism for pure mathematical argument. So as something that is happening, it directly contradicts what you claim about the mindset of the scientist. It is your worst possible example. Yet you keep trotting it out.

I don't believe that for a moment. I think that why science is currently embroiled in what Jim Baggott calls 'fairytale physics' is precisely the complete and total absence of an 'immanent unity'. — Wayfarer

There is an abundant contemporary literature on what's called scientific practice. The focus on scientific practice is a focus on what productive scientists actually do. More emphasis seems to be placed on the work of physicists and biologists rather than cognitive and social scientists. Thomas Kuhn and Joseph Rouse are two philosophers of science who are focusing on scientific practice.

There appears to be a significant disconnect between the metaphysical assumptions that scientists make, as manifested in their practice, and the sorts of metaphysical pronouncements that they make while trying to articulate what it is that they view as "the scientific method", or their views of the nature of the "physical" word. I often refer to the later as the modern scientific (and scientistic, foundationalist or reductionistic) view of the world. Maybe what @apokrisis is saying applies to current (and old) scientific practice as manifested in most of the productive natural scientific fields of inquiry whereas what you say applies to the crudely materialistic world view that permeates much contemporary scientific thinking: that is, to what scientists say rather than what they do.

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