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Plato and Natural Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

G. C. Field
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Extract

The object of this paper is, as the title implies, to investigate the relation of Plato’s thought to natural science. More especially, it is intended to examine the widely held view that Plato’s influence, owing to the character of his beliefs, was necessarily and positively unfavourable to the development of natural science, as we know it at the present day.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 8 , Issue 30 , April 1933 , pp. 131 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1933

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References

page 136 Note 1 τò μέν δή νοήσει μετά λόγον περιλημπτόν … τò δ’ αΰ δόξη μεταισθήσεως άλόγον δοξαστόν (Tim., 28A.)

page 138 Note 1 What is the object of the account of natural processes given in the Timaeus? It is not, of course, a record of original observations and experiments. Nor can it be intended as a text-book summary of the knowledge of these matters so far attained. It seems to me that it is best understood as an attempt to see how far these processes, as they were known at the time, could be explained in terms of the geometrical atomism expounded earlier in the dialogue. This theory itself was doubtless worked out as a response to the demand that the material world, so far as it was intelligible at all, should be capable of being formulated in mathematical terms. But the facts to which it was applied were those discovered by the ordinary methods of scientific investigation.

page 139 Note 1 And, of course, with the Pythagoreans.

page 141 Note 1 Compare the able summary of the metaphysical views of the leading physicists given by Mr. G. N. M. Tyrrell, in the October number of Philosophy. I think that anyone who reads this with a knowledge of Plato in mind will be struck by the remarkable resemblance of most of these theories to Plato’s. Of some of them we may feel also that they would gain greatly in coherence and consistency if the resemblance was made even closer. If we turn to more serious and systematic philosophies, based on the scientific approach, we can point to the remarkably close resemblance between the theories of Professor Whitehead and those of Plato.