أفلاطون _ أرسطو .. من کیمیائی ما قبل التاريخ إلى الفيلسوف الكيميائي

Plato _ Aristotle .. From a prehistoric chemist to a chemical philosopher

Plato

Plato was a descendant of a distinguished Athenian family: his father claimed that he descended from the Greek god Poseidon, and Plato's early ambitions may have been political, but after the death of his teacher he may have been convinced that Athenian politics was not suitable for people of conscience, and he turned to a life of education and philosophy instead of politics. In contrast to his teacher, Plato believed that natural philosophy was a field worthy of study, as long as one rose above the stigma of atheism and fear of the afterlife, by placing natural laws in a position subordinate to the authority of divine principles.

Plato, as a careful observer and a systematic thinker, believed that everything can be perceived by mental effort, and thus his natural philosophy based on the four elements of Anbad-Kalis has a clear and logical significance. For example, in the following excerpt from Plato's dialogue "Timaeus", metals are referred to as water because they melt, while gold is described as the perfect metal, and other metals are like gold but in an impure form.

Solidification [ : ] ... that which is denser, is formed from the finer and is that most precious of possessions called gold, and it is unique in its kind and possesses both brilliance and yellow color, a piece of gold that is so dense that it becomes solid and takes on a black color and is called adamant (a hard stone, most likely a diamond). There is another type that has parts almost like gold and this shiny substance is of the type of dense water, and when it solidifies it is called copper and there is an alloy mixed with earth with it, and when these two parts grow old they separate to become each on its own, and it is called rust (21).

Plato believed in the general idea that all matter is made of varying proportions of elements, but he developed this idea by adding that under the right conditions any substance can be transformed into another substance or undergo a transformation. To disseminate his ideas and support himself, Plato founded the Academy of Athens, an institution for the systematic study and research of philosophy and science. At this academy came a 17-year-old student who was to remain both student and teacher for the next twenty years: Aristotle.

Aristotle

Aristotle came from a famous Macedonian family from northern Greece, and although he was orphaned at an early age, the family took care of his education. In the Academy, Aristotle embraced the idea of ​​the four elements and their transformations, but he rejected the idea that particles were made of atoms and a vacuum. He explained that by saying that air would rush in to fill this vacuum.

It was said that he used to repeat that nature hates a vacuum (22). Aristotle went further and attributed qualities to the four elements, and granted a sensory property associated with each of them: hot and dry associated with fire, hot and humid with air, cold and humid with water, and cold and dry with earth.

Aristotle used observation and pure reasoning to reach his ideas. He reasoned that when wood burns, it produces smoke (air), pitch (water), ash (earth) and fire, so wood is composed of these elements. When flint is struck, it produces fire, so fire is an element in rock. When some rocks are thrown into water, bubbles rise from them because the air in their cracks escapes. This will prove to anyone that air is an element of rock if there is no other proof. Some crystals dissolve in water, making it cold, while other crystals dissolve, making it hot, that is, heat and cold seem to be two properties inherent in these materials.

Although Aristotle was not concerned with systematic experimentation, his reasoning from his observations represented an application of inductive reasoning, and had a more intuitive appeal than purely deductive reasoning when applied to natural phenomena, and this may have helped his ideas to be more widely accepted.

Aristotle's position was also teleological—that is, he believed that the world was governed by a specific purpose—and he explained phenomena in terms of how they fit into a general plan. This religious reasoning was in harmony with Hebrew theology, and later Christian and Islamic thought. For this reason, religions supported Aristotle's views, which gave him a longer life. Aristotle's views, which were accepted by many writers and philosophers, became embodied in European discourse and thought. Aristotle's theory of the formation of metals, which stated that metals were a vaporous, wet exhalation combined with a dry, smoky one, remained prevalent in Europe until the seventeenth century. Aristotle’s fifth and mysterious immaterial element—the ether—remained a subject of debate until the twentieth century.

We have seen in this chapter how early people acquired important knowledge about the materials they used to make tools, treat wounds, preserve meat, and make life more pleasant. The acquisition of new materials has continued throughout our history—with some surprising ones emerging. We have also seen how early Greek philosophers approached these materials and their interactions using the methods of rational reasoning (as opposed to introspection) to arrive at the theory that matter is composed of a basic set of elements, and that all matter contains all the elements. These early philosophers proposed the possibility of metamorphosis—that under the right conditions any substance could be transformed into another substance. The Aristotelian model of Greek philosophy had a great influence on later developments in chemical thought, both because it appealed intuitively to other popular modes of thinking, and because Aristotle was the tutor of Philip’s son, Philip of Macedon. The young Alexander was clearly fascinated by the things he learned at Aristotle’s feet. This student, who later became known as Alexander the Great, spread Greek civilization and philosophical ideas from the borders of China to the shores of Spain.