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Re: Patriarchy: Re: What Matriarchy?
Marty G. Price (mprice@Ra.MsState.Edu)
Thu, 8 Aug 1996 14:03:47 -0500
On Thu, 8 Aug 1996, William Edward Woody wrote:
>
> Footnote: As I recall my philosophy courses (which are as old and
> out of date as my QM and my VLSI design courses), Aristotle was not
> "comtemptuous" of the experimental method. Just that the philosophy
> of deducing the universe through experimental observation hadn't
> been uncovered yet....
>
Matches what I recall being taught. I recall the Sophists were
empiricists and used (or misused) their study in the service of a very
skeptical viewpoint. The other folks, of greater lasting importance, were
rationalists. The development of logical thought and systems of inquiry
historically preceeded the development of formal techniques of
observation. For example, a lot of acute observation of the physical
world went into Thales of Miletus's metaphysics ("water is the fundamental
building block of the universe; it can exist as a solid, a liquid, or a
vapor..."). However, his observations would no more strike us as
"scientific" than would his conclusions strike us as complete and
accurate.
Blessed Be,
Gale
"Mentally, those who came before are ourselves in our younger days:
learning the lessons we now take for granted." (Don't know who I stole
that line from; chronologically, it's accurate; historically, I wonder
:) .)
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