Physics by Aristotle
Aristotle begins by describing the meaning of the words “nature” and “natural.” He identifies
the meaning of each, and also explains some common phrases which include each of the words.
He says all natural things have a principle of motion and of stationariness. He also says that
natural things are composed of stone, earth, or a mixture of the two. According to him,
artificial products do not possess the source of their own production.
For example, the nature of a bed is of wood. He says that if the bed was planted and
began to rot, a shoot may grow from that. Aristotle says that a bed would not be growing, but
wood (in the form of a tree), which is the nature of the bed. Another idea of “nature” is form.
Bones and flesh does not have its own nature, until it is formed in the body.
In the second section of this book, Aristotle distinguishes between mathematicians and
physicists. He says that they work with similar ideas and materials, but use different methods.
He continues to explain how the forms of things can involve motion. Arist...
In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Aristotle’s argument from Physics Book 2, chapter 8, 199a9. Aristotle in this chapter tries to make an analogy between nature and action to establish that both, nature and action, have an end.
Though both of these things talk about the same basic idea, there are many differences s...
He believed the more you emerge with nature, the more divine you will be, because God made nature art. He also brings up the argument that if you don’t associate with nature then you don’t understand your surroundings just like you won’t understand God. In the “Nature,” he says “We are as much strangers to nature as we are aliens from God. We do not understand the notes of birds. The fox and the deer run away from us; the bear and tiger rent us.
In their most basic and natural settings, these two concepts can simply be defined as such:
He suggests that the physical substance (body) and mental substance (mind) are different in nature from each other. He believes that what we see could possibly be deceiving us and that this world might just be a dream.
although interestingly, he never truly mentions it as such. Instead, he invokes the spirits of nature
... of nature. In fact, this belief, which does beg the question, is what predominates his thinking.
Descartes is hopeful to prove subsistence of the external world (physical objects located in space), and so he returns to a very basic stage and acknowledges the existence of minds as an immaterial substance and God. He then accepts that matter exists as long as it is not a projection of his own mind or God. As Descartes previously established the existence of God as a perfect being, he therefore has concluded that God is not a deceiver. This very clear concept leads him to accept his clear and distinct sensory experiences are a result of external objects of material nature. Once these corporeal things (objects of a tangible, material nature) can be considered as self-evident ideas, they can no longer be products of the mind or God.
Robert Frost is considered by many to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Frost’s work has been regarded by many as unique. Frost’s poems mainly take place in nature, and it is through nature that he uses sense appealing-vocabulary to immerse the reader into the poem. In the poem, “Hardwood Groves”, Frost uses a Hardwood Tree that is losing its leaves as a symbol of life’s vicissitudes. “Frost recognizes that before things in life are raised up, they must fall down” (Bloom 22).
Throughout the other chapters, Emerson explores the idea of nature as instructor to man and how man can learn from nature. He repeatedly says that nature is a divine creation of God and through it man can learn to be closer to god. However, despite the reverence, awe, and prerequisite mental status, he also presents the concept of nature being 'below' and man on a 'Scala Natura ' of sorts. Although man seen as connected to and part of nature, for he questions if we can "separate the man from the living picture" of nature (26), he finds that nature is nothing without human interpretation because "All facts in natural history taken by themselves have not value . . .. but marry it to human history, and it is full of life," (33). However, there appears to be some more complicated interactions between nature and humans because human language, arguably one of the most important inventions/discoveries in our history is immediately dependent on nature (35). In a chapter titled Discipline, Emerson states that 'nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve," (45). Emerson believes that the human form is superior to all other organizations which appear to be degradations of it (50).
The great Greek thinker Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in Stagirus, a city in ancient Macedonia in northern Greece. At the age of eighteen Aristotle went to Athens to begin his studies at Plato's Academy. He stayed and studied at the Academy for nineteen years and in that time became both a teacher and an independent researcher. After Plato's death in 347 B.C. Aristotle spent twelve years traveling and living in various places around the Aegean Sea. It was during this time that Aristotle was asked by Philip of Macedon to be a private tutor to his son, Alexander. Aristotle privately taught Alexander for three years before he returned to Athens after Philip gained control of the Greek capital. During this period back in Athens Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, where he taught for twelve years. In 323 B.C. Alexander the Great died and the Macedonians lost control of Athens. Aristotle was forced to leave and he died one year later in Chalcis, north of Athens, at the age of 62.
Nature is usually seen more as the setting, rather than the antagonist in a story. In Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” there is a never ending battle between nature and the four different living entities, whether they be current or past experiences. This portrays nature as more of an opposing character, rather than it being a part of the setting. By using the four characters, the man, the dog, the old-timer from Sulphur Creek and the boys, London is able to portray how nature impacts them all and how they react based on their experience and knowledge.
and says that nothing can make this movement except by something that is already in
He has significantly altered our view of the world with his Theory of Relativity. The other one is not so well known, his works are commonly associated with Einstein instead. His name is Heisenberg. He is a narrator. He worked mainly in Quantum Physics and was responsible for the development of the Principle of Uncertainty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882), the leader of the Transcendentalism in New England, is the first American who wrote prose and poem on nature and the relationship between nature and man Emerson's philosophy of Transcendentalism concerning nature is that nature is only another side of God "the gigantic shadow of God cast our senses." Every law in nature has a counterpart in the intellect. There is a perfect parallel between the laws of nature and the laws of thought. Material elements simply represent an inferior plane: wherever you enumerate a physical law, I hear in it a moral rule. His poem The Rhodora is a typical instance to illustrate his above-mentioned ideas on nature. At the very beginning of the poem, the poet found the fresh rhodora in the woods, spreading its leafless blooms in a deep rock, to please the desert and the sluggish brook, while sea-winds pieced their solitudes in May. It is right because of the rhodora that the desert and the sluggish brook are no longer solitudes. Then the poem goes to develop by comparison between the plumes of the redbird and the rhodora . Although the bird is elegant and brilliant, the flower is much more beautiful than the bird. So the sages can not helping asking why this charm is wasted on the earth and sky. The poet answers beauty is its own cause for being just as eyes are made for seeing. There is no other reason but beauty itsel...