Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

6-2015

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Source Publication

Science in Context

Source ISSN

0269-8897

Original Item ID

DOI: 10.1017/S0269889715000046

Abstract

At Metaphysics A 5 986a22-b2, Aristotle refers to a Pythagorean table, with two columns of paired opposites. I argue that 1) although Burkert and Zhmud have argued otherwise, there is sufficient textual evidence to indicate that the table, or one much like it, is indeed of Pythagorean origin; 2) research in structural anthropology indicates that the tables are a formalization of arrays of “symbolic classification” which express a pre-scientific world view with social and ethical implications, according to which the presence of a principle on one column of the table will carry with it another principle within the same column; 3) a close analysis of Aristotle's arguments shows that he thought that the table expresses real causal relationships; and 4) Aristotle faults the table of opposites with positing its principles as having universal application and with not distinguishing between those principles that are causally prior and those that are posterior. Aristotle's account of scientific explanation and his own explanations that he developed in accordance with this account are in part the result of his critical encounter with this prescientific Pythagorean table.

Comments

Accepted version. Science in Context, Vol. 28, No. 2 (June 2015): 171-193. DOI. © 2015 Cambridge University Press. Used with permission.

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