Aristotle's Empiricism

In"Aristotle s Empiricism," Jean De Groot argues that an important part of Aristotle s natural philosophy has remained largely unexplored and shows that much of Aristotle s analysis of natural movement is influenced by the logic and concepts of mathematical mechanics that emerged from late Pythagorean thought. De Groot draws upon the pseudo-Aristotelian" Physical Problems" XVI to reconstruct the context of mechanics in Aristotle s time and to trace the development of kinematic thinking from Archytas to the Aristotelian "Mechanics." She shows the influence of kinematic thinking on Aristotle s concept of power or potentiality, which she sees as having a physicalistic meaning originating in the problem of movement.

De Groot identifies the source of early mechanical knowledge in kinesthetic awareness of mechanical advantage, showing the relation of Aristotle s empiricism to more ancient experience. The book sheds light on the classical Greek understanding of imitation and device, as it questions both the claim that Aristotle s natural philosophy codifies opinions held by convention and the view that the cogency of his scientific ideas depends on metaphysics."