Talk:John Philoponus

Influences: query on sources for an assertion

Are there any sources concerning the influence on Galileo, or is this an assumption (commonly made and often groundlessly) that since he did impetus and Galileo did inertia, he must have been an influence? Dandrake 08:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion

The Article currently says:

"He is credited with establishing some of the foundations for modern, more critical thought and scientific analysis, breaking with some of the more flawed aspects of Aristotelian and Platonic logic by disproving their theory of gravity.

As regards the natural motion of bodies falling through a medium, Aristotle's verdict that the speed is proportional to the weight of the moving bodies and indirectly proportional to the density of the medium is disproved by Philoponus through appeal to the same kind of experiment that Galileo was to carry out centuries later (In Phys. 682-84)."

But this is just too nebulous to be really helpful. What is it about Aristotle’s law that is supposed to have been refuted and exactly what Galileo experiment is supposed to have refuted it ? And how did allegedly refuting both Aristotle’s and also Plato’s theories of gravity also refute their logics ? This is essentially incoherent nonsense. Propose its deletion until something better can be done.

See the Logicus discussion on Philoponus in Galileo Talk of 29 February 2008. Philoponus said:

"But if bodies in themselves have more or less downward tendency, they will obviously have such a difference among themselves even if they move in a void and the same distance in a void will be traversed in less time by the heavier and in more by the lighter, not because of being more or less obstructed, but because of having a greater or lesser downward tendency in proportion to the difference in their natural weight." Physics 679.19-23 [p335 The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD Richard Sorabji 2004 Duckworth] --Logicus (talk) 18:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

sources

Canfora, Lucius. The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 1987.

Edwards, Paul, ed. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Macmillan and free Press, 1967.

Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Scribner's, 1970.

Jaki, Stanley L. The Milky Way; An Elusive Road for Science. New York: Science History Publications, 1973.

Pedersen, Olaf. Early Physics and Astronomy. Cambridge: cambridge university, 1993.

Taton, Rene. Ancient and Medieval Science; From the Beginnings to 1450. History of Science. New York: Basic Books, 1963.

Philoponus. Corollaries on Place and Void. Trans. David Furley. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1991.

Philoponus. Against Aristotle on the Eternity of the World. Trans. Christian Wildberg. Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1987.

Sorabji, Richard. Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotalian Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1987.

I just cut and pasted these as a note to anyone who wants to help.J8079s (talk) 20:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

source

John Philoponus as a Source of Medieval Islamic and Jewish Proofs of Creation "JSTOR: John Philoponus as a Source of Medieval Islamic and Jewish Proofs of Creation". JSTOR. Retrieved 21 March 2015. just dropping this off for now J8079s (talk) 19:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)