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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (82586)	6/21/2000 4:51:00 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<<...but he was without a doubt a shining human and a human with (overall) a very objective mind.>> Well, I'm still waiting to see some frogs to spontaneously generate out of mud.

To: Father Terrence who wrote (82586)	6/22/2000 2:52:00 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Aristotle IMO was a credulous plagiarist. His astronomy was ridiculous. His literary criticism was conventional. His biology, which is easiest to refute, was filled with errors. He thought human males had more teeth than women. (He was married!). He wrote that dogs lacked muscles in their front legs (only sinew -- he thought the aorta was a sinew ... Obviously he had never dissected a dog and if his students did they were blunderers. He wrote about animals, but never understood the idea of comparative anatomy which is discovered immediately by any serious veterinary student. The persistence of his mistakes is not his fault. Any scientist recognizes that personalities are never mentioned in discussing scientific questions. Only those who are truly mistaken continue to be associated with their ideas.

To: Father Terrence who wrote (82586)	6/22/2000 7:14:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

We can agree that Aristotle was one of the greats, and it is pleasant to agree, as we also agree on many political issues, I would remind you (remember our camaraderie on global warming). However, it was much more straightforward, I think. As he remarks in Book I of the metaphysics, it makes the greatest sense to attribute the majestic order of the universe to Intellect. He did not, of course, think that God created the universe, but rather that there was a hierarchy of actualized beings, man being the highest in the sub- lunar sphere; the moon, sun, planets, and stars (the gods); and the Prime Mover beyond the sphere of the fixed stars, "thought thinking itself", the sum of all actuality, and thus the self- contemplation of the cosmic order. Each sphere exerted a pull on the next lower, because the lower longed for greater completion. Thus, the moon controlled the tides and the menstrual cycle, and had an influence on fecundity. The Prime Mover was an unmoving source of energy because the sphere of the fixed stars rotated for desire of it. I elaborate all of this in order to show, first, that it was not similar to the beliefs of the surrounding culture, particularly; second, to hint at the integral nature of these views to his whole philosophy; and third, to show how Aristotle may have made sense in ordering the available data.