From Aristotelian Substances to Newtonian Mechanisms: The Rise of Modern Science

Aristotle spent most of his time observing the world around him, and grouping the things he observed into categorical hierarchies. The techniques he developed for categorizing observable items are still in use, not only in science, but in almost every organized activity in the modern civilized world. If you go into a library or a hardware store, you will only be able to find what you want because the books and the hardware are organized using some variation on Aristotle’s categories. Most search engines are able to work…