The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science

by Armand Marie Leroi

‘Every part of the body is for some action: so what the body as a composite whole is for is a multifaceted action.’ And although Aristotle’s explorations of these profound truths are delightfully detailed and endlessly ingenious it appears that he has impaled himself on the horns of a dilemma. He sees, as Socrates and Plato did before him, the evidence of purpose writ across the face of the world; sees too that material forces alone cannot explain it, but refuses to yield to the expedient of a cosmic designer. So the question remains: from where do plan and purpose in nature come? Aristotle’s answer to this question is brilliantly subversive. He appropriates another of Plato’s doctrines, one that underpins his, Plato’s, entire ontology and epistemology, one that is indeed the very mainspring of his contempt for the perceptible world, destroys it, rebuilds it and turns it to the service of science. There is much to dislike in Plato: his anti-science, his totalitarianism and the seductive charm of his prose; but to his credit let this be said: he taught Aristotle.