Science in classical Greece – The ancient scientist Plato, Aristotle and Theophrastus science work and life history.

Plato

Plato was born in Athens to a noble family. Even as a young boy he had absorbed all the culture of his time and was thoroughly acquainted with classical Greek literature, which he frequently and aptly quoted.

The Peloponnesian war and Socrates were the two major influences on Plato was about twenty when he met Socrates, whose technique was to ask a series of searching questions, which stimulated the mental process of inquiry. Thus Socrates, who always sought precise definitions, bequeathed a method.

Plato

After the execution of Socrates, Plato left Athens for a prolonged period of travel in Greece, Egypt, Italy and Sicily. At the age of forty, he returned to Athens and established his famous academy. He was associated with it for forty years. His aim was to make philosophers and statesmen.

The theory of ideas was the most celebrated contribution of Plato to philosophy. It dominated his thoughts on every subject. For him, the material world around us is subject to corruption and death and unworthy of inquiry. So Plato’s idealistic philosophy made earth-bound scientific knowledge impossible.

It is remarkable that, unlike those of other ancient writers, the works of Plato have survived virtually intact. The Timaeus is regarded as Plato’s work dealing with his views on science. Plato’s science is for the most part fantastic, bearing little resemblance to modern science. He emphatically rejects the practice of experimentation as impious. Only pure mathematics is to be tolerated. He condemned the use of instruments except the ruler and the compass.

Plato’s chief purpose in studying cosmos was to show the law and order, and harmony and rhythm prevailing in it. “By learning to keep in tune with this cosmic harmony, men day discover a pattern for their own souls and emotions”. But it had a deleterious effect as Sarton points out: “the astrological nonsense that has done so much harm to the western world and is still poisoning weak-minded people today was derived from the Timaeus, and Plato’s astrology was itself an offshoot of the Babylonian one”.

          In fact, Plato’s exotic hypotheses were accepted as scientific truth during the Middle Ages, which found in the Timaeus the trinity, the cross of the Christ, and the Holy Ghost, Kepler too accepted without question the platonic idea of universal harmony in the cosmic order.

Aristotle

Aristotle was a pupil of Plato and the tutor of Alexander the Great. He was the first universal man in the breadth of his interests. More than 400 books are ascribed to him, and they encompass every imaginable aspect of learning: logic, ethics, economics, politics, metaphysics, literature, mechanics, physics, astronomy, botany, zoology and psychology. As a philosopher, he had the conviction that unity and order prevail in the universe. Despite the loss of many of his works due to the ravages of time, the surviving works reveal his prodigious erudition and versatile mind. Of his many works, here we are concerned with those that relate to the material sciences and zoology.

Aristotle

          Like Hippocrates in medicine, Aristotle was the first great one in biology and remained the greatest in that field for two thousand years. His writings show the breadth of his biological interests. Charles Darwin said, “Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, they were mere, schoolboys to old Aristotle”.

          Because of religious taboos he could not dissect and study human physiology. This restriction accounts for several errors in these theories on physiology. Some of his propositions, which today we know as absurd, are: the heart is the scat of intelligence and the brain’s function is to cool the heart; man has only eight ribs on each side; woman has fewer teeth than man; the egg is not at first a living thing; the female offspring are imperfect or incomplete men; there is no essential difference between arteries and veins; and so on.

          Aristotle’s classification of animal species contributed to the development of the biological sciences. In this new field, his contributions remained the most significant up to the time of Linnaeus, some 2000 years later. He mentions about 540 different animals, some of which are based on the traveller’s takes on legendary lore; but most are based on personal observation and nearly fifty species from knowledge gained by dissection. He obtained information from herdsmen, fishermen and hunters too. Based on all these he wrote several treatises on biology, such as the history of animals, the Progression of animals, the generation of animals etc.

Theophrastus (the father of botany)

          This Greek philosopher laid the foundation stone for the scientific study of plant life. He was a student of Plato and a fellow student of Aristotle. Being about fifteen years junior to Aristotle, he became the latter’s student after the death of Plato. Aristotle gave him the nickname Theophrastus (divine of speech), nominated him the head of his famous lyceum, and designated him guardian of his children. He also bequeathed him his library and garden. All these are evidence of Aristotle’s high esteem for Theophrastus.

Theophrastus

Theophrastus was as prolific and versatile a writer as Aristotle. He wrote nearly 227 treatises on varied subjects like religion, politics, ethics, mathematics, rhetoric, logic, music, poetry, love, astronomy and so on. The most important of his works are two large botanical treatises called, on the history of plants and on the causes of plants. Both these are the most significant contributions to botanical science during ancient and medieval times. They became the ultimate authority of all botanical science during ancient and medieval times. They became the ultimate authority of all botanical matters for the next two thousand years.

          Theophrastus did not journey much in foreign lands. He relied much on information brought to him by his students and other travellers. For example, his sponsor Alexander the Great took scientifically trained observers with him to Persia and India, and these men provided Theophrastus with descriptions of plants like cotton, banyan, coconut, pepper, cinnamon etc. in the course of his collecting information, he gathered a lot of curious folklore and superstitions associated with plants. Though he did not believe them, he recorded them as they were too interesting to omit. Generally, the folk believed that if taboos were broken, the herbs collected would lose their efficacy.

Aristotle taught Theophrastus the role of classification in science. So, Theophrastus classified nearly five hundred plants based on their characteristic features. He gave them special botanical names, besides their common names. His discovery of the process of pollination was soon completely neglected by his successors and Parkinson, a 17th-century English herbalist, ridiculed it as a fable.

          Theophrastus discusses in detail the damage to plants and farm crops by insects, worms and other parasites. He has noted the particular pest that damages a particular plant and the measures to control them. He was also sure of the geographical distribution of plants according to soil and climate.

          The amount of information he was able to compile is really astounding, especially given his lack of scientific instruments. In his time botany was a field unheard of. Little was added to his findings in the Middle Ages. So he was the first and the greatest botanist until the Renaissance. “The botany of Theophrastus and the zoology of Aristotle represent the climax of natural history in antiquity”.