Aristotelian Physics

Aristotelian Physics, the natural sciences, are described in the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC). In the Physics, Aristotle established general principles of change that govern all natural bodies; both living and inanimate, celestial and terrestrial—including all motion, change in respect to place, change in respect to size or number, qualitative change of any kind, and coming to be and passing away. As Martin Heidegger, one of the foremost philosophers of the twentieth century, once wrote,

Aristotelian "physics" is different from what we mean today by this word, not only to the extent that it belongs to antiquity whereas the modern physical sciences belong to modernity, rather above all it is different by virtue of the fact that Aristotle's "physics" is philosophy, whereas modern physics is a positive science that presupposes a philosophy.... This book determines the warp and woof of the whole of Western thinking, even at that place where it, as modern thinking, appears to think at odds with ancient thinking. But opposition is invariably comprised of a decisive, and often even perilous, dependence. Without Aristotle's Physics there would have been no Galileo.

To Aristotle, physics is a broad term that includes all nature sciences, such as philosophy of mind, body, sensory experience, memory and biology, and constitutes the foundational thinking underlying many of his works.