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[MadOvid]

I heard a while ago that they found a book that was written by Aristotle. Since most of what's out there is actually study notes and not written by him, this is a big deal. I was wondering if anybody  had any info on this.

[MattBurns]

It's the first I've heard of it, but after reading Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, I'm fairly convinced that Aristotle was an idiot and has done more to slow the technological advancement of mankind more than just about any single individual in the history of man kind.

[MadOvid]

OK, explain yourself MattBurns. What is the argument against Aristotle in Zero:The Biography of a Dangerous Idea?
Was it Aristotle that was the idiot or the people who interpreted him? 'cause I find that's where most problems rise with philosophers. They put out an idea, politics gobbles it up, misinterprets it and screws everything up.

[MattBurns]

Aristotle was against testing ideas. he came up with an idea and then spread it as truth without ever checking. He spread this view to others which is pretty much totally against the scientific method. He made several claims that were just plain wrong, but no one called him on because he was Aristotle.

He claimed that Nature abhorred a vacuum, thus one couldn't exist. He claimed that heavier objects fall faster than light ones. He claimed that infinity and the void (zero) didn't exist, which kept us locked into Roman numerals long after the rest of the world moved on to a more modern system of counting and mathematics. He even claimed that Men have more teeth then women.

The fact that he was Aristotle lead many to accept everything he said as fact and not to think about it anymore, Think about what Rome, or even Greece could have accomplished if they weren't saddled by all of his false assumptions. In the 350 years since Newton rejected Aristotle's view on the universe and replaced it with one based on observation and experimentation, we have gone to the moon and back. If this attitude was adopted during his lifetime where would we be today?

it's been a while since I read that book, and I highly recommend it, it's an amazing story that is very well told, so I don't remember things detail for detail, but it's clear that those that followed Aristotle did not once think to question his pronouncements, and it held everyone back. It might very well be his followers and students that were the idiot, but it was his legacy that held us back for so long.

[Utopian]

I've not read the book you mention, Matt, but everything has to start somewhere, even science and technology. In a pre-science and technology world, the ideas that Aristotle posited and the fact the he and other early even took the time to think about the nature of the world and how it can be explained is fantastic. To call him an idiot is a bit daft - I doubt he'd have been so highly thought of it Ancient Greece if that was the case.

Another thing to take into account is that the Western Philosophical tradition lost Aristotle. He had to be reintroduced to us by Medieval Muslim philosophers while we were stuck on Plato. I rather feel that once we had translated him, we were able to expand our newer philosophical horizons considerably.

[MadOvid]

Both of you raise interesting points. It is true that the Aristotelian view of the cosmos did hold unquestionable sway for many generations . Although I still wonder if the problem does not lie in the interpreters not in Aristotle. Politics running with an idea and taking it way too seriously.
But it is also true that a lot of progress, scientific, literary, and social progress, can be linked to people rediscovering these old texts and seeing them in a new light. I believe it was Aristotle who claimed we're all made from these little things called Atoms. (crazy, crazy Aristotle.)
Where Aristotle shines, I think, is in his philosophy. Read The Politics, and his section on Democracy. Tell me that doesn't resonate with today.

[MattBurns]

I believe it was Leucippus who came up with the idea of Atoms.

Aristotle fiercely attacked this idea because it declared that everything in nature was either made of Atoms or Voids, and voids could not exist.

Though I've never read his works on political theory, so I can't accurately judge him there, nor do I suspect could we adequately debate the subject without making Jeph cry.

[MadOvid]

I stand corrected.