On 2/6/2017 9:19 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
I myself tend to view causality as more economic and population-size driven than ideologically driven.
I agree. In fact, that's a major reason why the Homo saps were so far ahead of the neanderthals in technology: they had a warmer climate in Africa that made food more abundant to support a larger population. The most rapid advances occurred after the development of farming, when the food supply and population grew rapidly.
Bernal's "The Extension of Man'- a very detailed outline of technology development 'extending' man's physical capacities to interact with the world...
In places where the two overlapped (middle east), the neanderthals adopted the new technology. And the anthropologists today are discovering innovations that the neanderthals had invented on their own (some of which the anthropologists still have not been able to duplicate with the kind of technology available then).
"the development of capitalism as the leading method of production also witnessed that of experiment and calculation as the new method of natural science"
I wasn't considering the metaphysical differences between Plato and Aristotle, but the different emphasis on the value of observation and record keeping. The "experiment and calculation" was introduced a century before banking and capitalism. (And both depended on Arabic numerals, which the Muslims adopted from the Hindus, who were influenced by the Chinese number system.) Plato was a mathematician, who considered the mathematical forms as the ideal source of knowledge. But Aristotle's father was a physician who emphasized careful observation and detailed record keeping of what was observed and the results of various procedures. Aristotle was a pioneer in experimental science. A famous example is his experiment with chicken eggs. He and his students collected a batch of eggs laid on the same day. Then they broke open one egg each day and made detailed observations of the embryos. Philosophically, Galen was more of a Platonist, but he was very strongly influenced by Aristotle's biological writings. When the Arabs took over the middle east, they weren't interested in Greek literature. Greek medicine (Galen) was their first interest, and that led them to Aristotle and Greek science and mathematics. By the 11th c, Arabic technology and economic power was the greatest in the world. But the crusaders (AKA Christian terrorists) came from a primitive civilization (Europe) and were amazed at the glories of Muslim economic achievements. Unfortunately, those invasions gave the Islamic conservatives the upper hand. They squelched the liberals with their "infidel" books. They burned libraries, banished teachers, and destroyed their own economic and technological foundation. John
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