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The ancient Greek concept of four basic elements, these being earth (γῆ gê), water (ὕδωρ hýdōr), air (ἀήρ aḗr), and fire (πῦρ pŷr), dates from pre-Socratic times and persisted throughout the Middle Ages and into the Early modern period, deeply influencing European thought and culture. [5]
Page one of Aristotle's On the Heavens, from an edition published in 1837. On the Heavens (Greek: Περὶ οὐρανοῦ; Latin: De Caelo or De Caelo et Mundo) is Aristotle's chief cosmological treatise: written in 350 BCE, [1] it contains his astronomical theory and his ideas on the concrete workings of the terrestrial world.
Aristotelian physics is the form of natural philosophy described in the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC). In his work Physics, Aristotle intended to establish general principles of change that govern all natural bodies, both living and inanimate, celestial and terrestrial – including all motion (change with respect to place), quantitative change (change with respect to ...
While actuality is linked by Aristotle to his concept of a formal cause, potentiality (or potency) on the other hand, is linked by Aristotle to his concepts of hylomorphic matter and material cause. Aristotle wrote for example that "matter exists potentially, because it may attain to the form; but when it exists actually, it is then in the form."
Aether naturally moved in circles, and had no contrary, or unnatural, motion. Aristotle also stated that celestial spheres made of aether held the stars and planets. The idea of aethereal spheres moving with natural circular motion led to Aristotle's explanation of the observed orbits of stars and planets in perfectly circular motion. [1] [11]
Anaxagoras, born about 500 BC, is the first person who is definitely known to have explained the concept of a nous (mind), which arranged all other things in the cosmos in their proper order, started them in a rotating motion, and continuing to control them to some extent, having an especially strong connection with living things.
From this important work Aristotle gives us two of his most remembered contributions. First, the Four Causes and also the Four Elements (earth, wind, fire, and water). He uses these four elements to provide an explanation for the theories of other Greeks concerning atoms, an idea Aristotle considered absurd.
Plato and Aristotle helped to formulate the original theory of a sublunary sphere in antiquity, [4] [missing long citation] the idea usually going hand in hand with geocentrism and the concept of a spherical Earth. Avicenna carried forward into the Middle Ages the Aristotelian idea of generation and corruption being limited to the sublunary ...