• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.141-170
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• 2009

We can witness the recent surge of interest in the controversy over the scientific status of mathematics among Jesuit Aristotelians around 1600. Following the lead of Wallace, Dear, and Mancosu, I propose to look into this controversy in more detail. For this purpose, I shall focus on Biancani's discussion of scientiae mediae in his dissertation on the nature of mathematics. From Dear's and Wallace's discussions, we can gather a relatively nice overview of the debate between those who championed the scientific status of mathematics and those who denied it. But it is one thing to fathom the general motivation of the disputation, quite another to appreciate the subtleties of dialectical strategies and tactics involved in it. It is exactly at this stage when we have to face some difficulties in understanding the point of Biancani's views on scientiae mediae. Though silent on the problem of scientiae mediae, Mancosu's discussions of the Jesuit Aristotelians' views on potissima demonstrations, mathematical explanations, and the problem of cause are of utmost importance in this regard, both historically and philosophically. I will carefully examine and criticize some of Mancosu's interpretations of Piccolomini's and Biancani's views in order to approach more closely what was really at stake in the controversy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.158-170
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to understand the characteristics of Aristotle's view of nature that is, the static view of the universe, and find implications for education. Plato sought to interpret the natural world using a rational approach rather than an incomplete observation, in terms of from the perspective of geometry and mathematical regularity, as the best way to understand the world. On the other hand, Aristotle believed that we could understand the world by observing what we see. This world is a static worldview full of the purpose of the individual with a sense of purposive legitimacy. In addition, the natural motion of earthly objects and celestial bodies, which are natural movements towards the world of order, are the original actions. Aristotle thought that, given the opportunity, all natural things would carry out some movement, that is, their natural movement. Above all, the world that Plato and Aristotle built is a static universe. It is possible to fully grasp the world by approaching the objective nature that exists independently of human being with human reason and observation. After all, for Aristotle, like Plato, their belief that the natural world was subject to regular and orderly laws of nature, despite the complexity of what seemed to be an embarrassingly continual change, became the basis of Western thought. Since the universe, the metaphysical perspective of ancient Greece and modern philosophy, relies on the development of a dichotomy of understanding (cutting branches) into what has already been completed or planned, ideal and inevitable, so it is the basis of traditional teaching-learning that does not value learner's opinions.