scholarly journals Aristotle’s Methodology for Natural Science in Physics 1-2: a New Interpretation

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-146
Author(s):  
Evan Dutmer

In this essay I will argue for an interpretation of the remarks of Physics 1.1 that both resolves some of the confusion surrounding the precise nature of methodology described there and shows how those remarks at 184a15-25 serve as important programmatic remarks besides, as they help in the structuring of books 1 and 2 of the Physics. I will argue that “what is clearer and more knowable to us” is what Aristotle goes on to describe in 1.2—namely, that nature exists and that natural things change—his basic starting-point for natural science. This, I shall hope to show, is the kind of “immediate” sense datum which Aristotle thinks must be further analyzed in terms of principles (archai) and then causes (aitia) over the course of Physics books 1 and 2 to lead to knowledge about the natural world.[1] Such an analysis arrives at, as I shall show, a definition (horismos) of nature not initially available from the starting-point just mentioned (i.e., it is in need of further analysis), and which is clearer by nature.[2] It is not my aim here to resolve longstanding debates surrounding Aristotle’s original intent in the ordering and composition of the first two books of the Physics, nor how the Physics is meant to fit into the Aristotelian corpus taken as a coherent whole, but rather to show that the first two books of the Physics, as they stand, fit with the picture of methodology for natural science presented to us in 1.1.   [1] An interesting consequence of this, and one which I shall not pursue in this paper at any length, is that the progression from what is clearer to us and what is clearer by nature is by necessity a form of revision: i.e., the Physics should not be seen as a work validating the “starting-point” of 1.2 contra the monists, but a work which gradually builds to the language of matter and form as what is clearer by nature. [2] Viz., what we find at the beginning of 2.1: “this suggests that nature is a sort of source (arche) and cause (aition) of change and remaining unchanged in that to which it belongs primarily of itself, that is, not by virtue of concurrence” (192b20-22).

GigaScience ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Davies ◽  
John Deck ◽  
Eric C Kansa ◽  
Sarah Whitcher Kansa ◽  
John Kunze ◽  
...  

Abstract Sampling the natural world and built environment underpins much of science, yet systems for managing material samples and associated (meta)data are fragmented across institutional catalogs, practices for identification, and discipline-specific (meta)data standards. The Internet of Samples (iSamples) is a standards-based collaboration to uniquely, consistently, and conveniently identify material samples, record core metadata about them, and link them to other samples, data, and research products. iSamples extends existing resources and best practices in data stewardship to render a cross-domain cyberinfrastructure that enables transdisciplinary research, discovery, and reuse of material samples in 21st century natural science.


Crimen ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-271
Author(s):  
Sanja Milivojević ◽  
Elizabeth Radulski

The Internet of Things (IoT) is poised to revolutionise the way we live and communicate, and the manner in which we engage with our social and natural world. In the IoT, objects such as household items, vending machines and cars have the ability to sense and share data with other things, via wireless, Bluetooth, or Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology. "Smart things" have the capability to control their performance, as well as our experiences and decisions. In this exploratory paper, we overview recent developments in the IoT technology, and their relevance for criminology. Our aim is to partially fill the gap in the literature, by flagging emerging issues criminologists and social scientists ought to engage with in the future. The focus is exclusively on the IoT while other advances, such as facial recognition technology, are only lightly touched upon. This paper, thus, serves as a starting point in the conversation, as we invite scholars to join us in forecasting-if not preventing-the unwanted consequences of the "future Internet".


Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4992 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-89
Author(s):  
ADRIAN ARDILA-CAMACHO ◽  
CALEB CALIFRE MARTINS ◽  
ULRIKE ASPÖCK ◽  
ATILANO CONTRERAS-RAMOS

Adult external morphology of the extant raptorial Mantispoidea (Insecta: Neuroptera: Mantispidae and Rhachiberothidae) is compared emphasizing the morphology of the subfamily Symphrasinae as a key group to understand the phylogenetic relationships among the members of the superfamily. Plega dactylota Rehn, 1939 is thoroughly characterized in order to exemplify the morphology of the Symphrasinae. Additionally, following a review of the literature and examination of comparative material of Dilaridae, Berothidae, Rhachiberothidae and all Mantispidae subfamilies, a new interpretation of the components of the raptorial apparatus (i.e., head, prothorax, grasping forelegs, as well as integumentary specializations) is presented. Also, wing venation for these groups is reinterpreted, and new homology hypotheses for wing venation are proposed based on tracheation and comparative analyses. Given the high morphological divergence on the genital sclerites within the Mantispoidea, plus the confusing previous usage of neutral terminology and terms referring to appendages across taxonomic and morphological studies, we attempt to standardize, simplify, and situate terminology in an evolutionary context under the “gonocoxite concept” (multi-coxopod hypothesis). The remarkable morphological similarity of the genital sclerites of Symphrasinae and Rhachiberothidae (sensu U. Aspöck & Mansell 1994) with the Nallachinae (Dilaridae) was taken as a starting point to understand the morphology of other Mantispidae subfamilies. Based on these morphological comparisons, we provide a revised phylogenetic analysis of Mantispoidea. This new phylogenetic analysis supports a sister group relationship between the family Rhachiberothidae, comprising Rhachiberothinae and Symphrasinae, and the family Mantispidae, including the subfamily Mantispinae and its sister taxa Drepanicinae and Calomantispinae, which may represent a single subfamily. Based on these analyses, raptorial condition probably evolved a single time in these insects and subsequently became diversified in the two sister clades of the raptorial Mantispoidea.  


Author(s):  
K. P. Van Anglen

The piece is the earliest example in Thoreau of a prose genre now known as the excursion, which combines a brief autobiographical account of an experience of nature with broader philosophical meditations on the natural world. Moreover, in “A Walk to Wachusett,” Thoreau also uses quotations from and allusions to Virgil's own earliest extant poems (the eclogues) to recreate in prose the tension found throughout Virgil's poetry between the themes of the pastoral and those of epic. Thoreau also thereby allies his own literary career to the progression first followed by Virgil, from pastoral to georgic to epic, known as the cursus honorum. This renders problematic any simple notion that he became a scientist later in his career. Rather, his interests in natural science merged with his original goal of writing epic poetry, in his treatment of Pliny the Elder's Natural History.


Author(s):  
Seán Hewitt

The Irish Revival was, amongst other things, an attempt to ‘re-enchant’ the Irish natural world as both a protest against Anglicisation and Enlightenment values. Through a study of the poetry of a lesser-known Revivalist poet, Seumas O’Sullivan, who was a keen natural historian, and thus engaged with the popular discourses and practices of natural science in the period, this chapter discusses Revivalist nature poetry as a form of ‘re-enchantment’. In doing so, it also considers how engagement with natural history in the period effected a shift in the poetic relationship to materiality, considering the movement between Celtic Revival poetry and later Revivalist work in term of a closer attention to the physical world.


Author(s):  
Justine Pila ◽  
Paul L.C. Torremans

This chapter considers the nature and scope of the rights conferred by copyright and related rights under European law. The starting point for this discussion are domestic conceptions of copyright and related rights as conferring a range of economic and moral rights on authors and related rights holders to authorize or prohibit certain acts in relation to the protected work or subject matter within the territory of the protecting state, subject to the availability of a limitation or exception. With this as background, the chapter considers the precise nature and scope of the rights conferred by copyright and related rights as a matter of European law, and such aspects of those rights as remain untouched by European law.


Numen ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 495-518
Author(s):  
Matthias Egeler

Taking its starting point from the current theoretical debate about “religious aesthetics” (Religionsästhetik), this article offers a new interpretation of the landscaping of the Island of Diomedes. On the basis of a survey of the primary sources, it demonstrates that the descriptions of the Island of Diomedes have to be seen in the context of the mythological motif of the Islands of the Blessed. This in turn suggests an explanation for Theophrastus’ statement that in the Adriatic region of his day, the plane tree grew only around the shrine of Diomedes: given the typical associations of the plane tree, the planting of planes on the sanctuary island of Diomedes may have been intended to bring the appearance of the Island of Diomedes in line with contemporary stereotypes about the appearance of the Islands of the Blessed; thus, the plane trees of Diomedes constitute a historical case of direct relevance for the question of “religious aesthetics.” The article goes on to demonstrate that the plane trees of Diomedes constitute conclusive evidence against the identification of the Island of Diomedes with the island of Pelagosa (recently suggested on the basis of archaeological finds). Instead, the Island of Diomedes should be sought among the Isole Tremiti.


2017 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 97-106
Author(s):  
Sylwia Kucharuk

A FEW REFLEXIONS ON THE FRIENDSHIP IN BECKET OR THE HONOUR OF GOD BY JEAN ANOUILHThe above work is a conjecture on a new interpretation of the complicated friendship between Henry II, King of England, and Thomas Becket, saint martyr, as characters in Jean Anouilh’s play Becket or The Honour of God. They have little in common, and it seems that everything divides them. An analysis of this opus is used as a starting point to a general reflection on the influence of external factors such as social status and political framework, as well as internal factors such as personality traits, value system, and propriety on particular stages of friendship. The analysis is also an attempt at defining the concept of friendship presented in the play.


2004 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
Kim Arne Pedersen

Grundtvig og folkehøjskolen i dag: Debatindlæg fra tre yngre Grundtvig-forskere om den grundtvigske arv i højskoledebatten i begyndelsen a f2004. Bidragene stammer fra et fyraftensmøde i Højskolernes Hus, Nytorv, København[Grundtvig and the Folk-Highschool today: Contributions to a Debate from three younger Grundtvig- Scholars, in Connection with the national Debate upon the Grundtvig-Legacy in the Folk-Highschool early in 2004. The Contributions stem from an Evening Meeting in Højskolernes Hus, Nytorv, Copenhagen]By Henrik Wigh-Poulsen, Jes Fabricius Møller and Kim Arne PedersenHenrik Wigh-Poulsen (Grundtvig Academy) sketches out the way in which the Grundtvig legacy, having at first been a force for religious and political transformation, has become a national gene-code by becoming identified with Danishness. However, this is not felt to be a victory within the Grundtvigian movement where almost from the start a worry about watering-down and a desire to get back to the wellsprings can be traced. Instead of worrying, a job of reconstruing ought to be addressed. In our post-postmodem age, the inherited legacy is no longer taken as given but has to be reformulated without use of the received terminology. The annexation of Grundtvig by Danish newnationalism and the modem folk-highschoofs critical relationship to the inheritance from him make this problematic, but with a startingpoint in Grundtvig’s conception of Christianity one may point to Grundtvig’s openness, founded upon his creation-theology, towards the present and the future and that interaction between Christianity and culture, tradition and renewal, which ensue from it.Jes Fabricius Møller, taking as his starting-point the enthusiasm of certain folk-highschool people for qualification-orientated education, combined with criticism of Grundtvig, suggests that this group of people’s current break with Grundtvig is not inconsistent with the history of the folk-highschools following the Second World War, when interest gravitated towards life-philosophy, theology and literature. Furthermore, Grundtvig has suffered the fate of been overshadowed by the Grundtvig-myth, a relationship which has partly to do with the compartmentalised nature of Grundtvig’s writings, and partly with the compartmentalisation of the Grundtvigian movement.Here, Grundtvig functions as a mythic gathering-point which English Summaries / danske resuméer overshadows the real Grundtvig. Grundtvig is of significance not because of the effectiveness of his specific message, but because he made himself effective and thereby became an historical premise for the present.Kim Arne Pedersen, in an extension of the study-group “A new view upon Grundtvig” within the Danish folk-highschools, sketches an outline for a new interpretation of the Grundtvigian vision of the highschool. The objective is that the highschools should keep up with the circumstances of the times without capitulating to their conditions, but concretely to formulate a third way between new nationalism’s exploitation of Grundtvig and his repudiation by Danish intellectuals and highschool people: that is, on the one hand a nationalistic Grundtvig, and on the other hand the Danish education system’s focus upon the concept of qualification-attainment [>kompetence-begrebet], which is here to be understood as being in harmony with the present time’s focus upon power relationships as the determinant within human relationships.The history of Grundtvig’s influence and the debate among Grundtvig scholars form a background for the third way. In opposition to acceptance of power relationships as foundational, an extension of Martin Buber is brought to bear upon the dialogue. Grundtvig is seen as a part of modernity, and against the background of the Grundtvigian concepts of converse [samtale] and interaction [vekselvirkning] the Grundtvigian concept of life-enlightenment [livsoplysningsbegreb] is construed out of the human relationship to God within a radical freedom and with space for the miracle and the unexpected which breaks through into human life through this dialogue. The Grundtvigian concept of national communality [folkelighed] is construed, in opposition to theories of social-constructivist nationalism, along the lines of Adrian Hastings’ understanding of “nation” as a concept coming into existence via Christianity in the medieval and early modem periods. Global changes mean that today national communality [folkelighed] is indeed to be understood against the background of the national culture, but also, simultaneously, as an imperative, a project, rather than as a description of a pre-established reality.


1989 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-104
Author(s):  
Kim Arne Pedersen

Grundtvig’s conception of Nature.By Kim Arne Pedersen.In this paper Grundtvig’s view on non-human nature and natural science is examined with the contemporary Danish discussion about theology and natural sciences (Viggo Mortensen) as a starting-point. It is argued against the use of Grundtvig’s ideas as a model for a dialogue between these fields of scholarship.Earlier researchers’ (C. I. Scharling) denial of Grundtvig having a view on nature is rejected, and Kaj Thaning’s conception of the autonomy of natural sciences in Nordens Mythologi 1832 is modified.Grundtvig’s conception of nature is defined as rooted in the Western European theological tradition’s Neo-platonic oriented cosmological interpretation of Genesis. Grundtvig takes up the understanding of natural objects as images of the invisible, spiritual world, but he shows his awareness of the rational, scientific interpretation of this tradition.The article points out 4 phases in Grundtvig’s elaboration of his view on nature after 1810, connected with the years after Kort Begreb af Verdens Krønike 1812, the magazine Danne-Virke 1816-1819, the years after Nordens Mythologi 1832 and the period from 1855 to 1860-1865. In the first phase Grundtvig rejects the independence of natural sciences as a tool of Antichrist in the final battle of the near future. In Danne-Virke nature is understood as a tool used in man’s symbolic knowledge of God. The main tool is man’s knowledge of himself because of his exceptional position inside creation as a creature with self-consciousness and language, and therefore the natural sciences are subordinated research on the history of man. Grundtvig’s thesis of femininity as representing nature and man’s body as a microcosm both in a rational, scientific and in a symbolic way is connected with this leading idea. In the years after Nordens Mythologi Grundtvig gives nature and natural sciences a much more independent position, but at the same time he stresses nature’s connection with man because of the state of man’s body as a microcosm. Grundtvig also attacks the Copernican picture of the universe.In the years after 1855 Grundtvig’s attitude towards natural science is sharpened. Apocalyptic motives return, and now Antichrist is connected with the rejection of God’s omnipotence and man’s exceptional position inside creation. As an alternative to the natural sciences Grundtvig emphasizes the interpretation of nature as a symbolic image of God.


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