Classical greek philosophy

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At death, the soul migrates to the World of Pure Form

What is the concept of a perfect God?

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Plato

The Republic

Idea of the perfect society

“What is the nature of reality?”

Philosophers emerging from the cave

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Plato

Mathematics

Supported Pythagorean school

Math is the organizing rules for the Forms which combine in various geometric shapes to create all things

Sign on the door of the Academy

“Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here”

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Aristotle 384-322 BC

Son of a physician

Born in Macedonia

Attended the Academy

Became Plato’s foremost student

Left the Academy when Plato died

Founded the Lyceum in Athens

More focused in natural science

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Aristotle

Forms

Some Forms have qualities and quantities that are not fixed (and therefore not "perfect")

Colors or measurements

Forms can be perceived from the object itself by observation and from many others that have similar Forms to develop the nature of the Form of that thing

True nature is understood by observation

Classification of the sciences

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Aristotle

Wrote on physics

Universe is eternal, finite and spherical

Earth is center of the universe

World composed of 4 elements (earth, fire, water, air)

Heavens composed of aether

4 elements affected by qualities (dry, cold, wet, hot)

Real objects are composites of Form and matter

Plato did not value matter

Note Aristotle’s thinking—spirit and body

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Aristotle

Four Casual Questions (Physics)

Material Question

Efficient Question

Formal Question

Final Question

Example: A Mouse

Is the final cause perfection? Can anything be perfect?

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"Nothing we design or make ever really works. We can always say what [more] it ought to do, but that it never does. The aircraft falls out of the sky or rams the earth full tilt and kills the people. It has to be tended like a new born babe . Our dinner table ought to be variable in size and height, removable altogether, impervious to scratches, self-cleaning, and having no legs . Never do we achieve a satisfactory performance."

– Petroski, Henry The Evolution of Useful Things, Vintage Books, 1994, pp. 25.

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