Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Aristotelian science

The Catholic Encyclopedia has a neat characterisation of the difference between the modern sense of 'science' and its medieval and Aristotelian sense. The modern meaning is of course restricted to the natural sciences. The older meaning is wider.
Aristotle defines science as a sure and evident knowledge obtained from
demonstrations. This is identical with St. Thomas's definition of science as the
knowledge of things from their causes. In this sense science comprises the
entire curriculum of university studies.

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