Should the Astronomer Look into the Sky?

Abstract

In this chapter, and in the two following chapters, three Greek philosophical traditions are considered: Platonic, Aristotelian, and Archimedean. Plato’s doctrine held that material beings, perceptible by the senses, are only the shadows of the corresponding ideas. For instance, a cube made by an artisan is only an imperfect similitude of the Perfect Cube. At this point, Plato’s ontology meets Platonic aesthetics. For the Greeks, beauty was an almost physical property of bodies and, under the influence of the Pythagoreans, was identified with symmetry that could be represented by numbers with the help of various kinds of proportion.