…archetype. Well, that tradition is still with us today in many manifestations. The other great classical tradition is that of Aristotle, who was a student of Plato. And Aristotle, unlike most philosophers, was actually a biologist and had a keen understanding…

…us today in many manifestations. The other great classical tradition is that of Aristotle, who was a student of Plato. And Aristotle, unlike most philosophers, was actually a biologist and had a keen understanding of living processes. As I'm sure most of…

…most philosophers, was actually a biologist and had a keen understanding of living processes. As I'm sure most of you know, Aristotle thought that every process of change involved what he called the four causes, four different causes you had to take into…

…that he wouldn't be doing it so all these four causes together are important in understanding the development of form In biology, Aristotle thought that the form of each kind of organism, a plant or an animal, was given by its soul, its psyche. Every…

…just a plan, it was also a motivation. It was drawn towards that. Souls motivated by attraction. Well, This idea of Aristotle had a great influence in Europe in the Middle Ages. It became part of scholastic orthodoxy. It was integrated with Christian…

…organizing influence. They had many names for it. The vital factor, the nisus formativus, the élan viton, the entelechy following Aristotle. Some invisible organizing factor which shapes organisms, gives them their form. And it's this which is the answer to…

…same amount of materials and involve the same amount of labor. But what's different is the plan, the architect's plan. What Aristotle would have called the formal cause. You see, the problem with mechanistic science, and why, as John remarked right at the…

…of science, is that since the 17th century, science has been based on an ideology that attributes causation only to what Aristotle would have called the material and the efficient causes, only to the matter and to the moving cause, matter and energy,…

…the sorts of ideas that were going around in Greece. And many of them were brought together in a great synthesis by Aristotle. Aristotle was a philosopher of becoming. These ideas were all ideas that tried to understand a kind of static being. But…

…sorts of ideas that were going around in Greece. And many of them were brought together in a great synthesis by Aristotle. Aristotle was a philosopher of becoming. These ideas were all ideas that tried to understand a kind of static being. But Aristotle…

…Aristotle was a philosopher of becoming. These ideas were all ideas that tried to understand a kind of static being. But Aristotle was the only philosopher I know of who was a biologist. And his primary concern was understanding becoming, the way in…

…the founders of modern science rebelled against Aristotle's philosophy. The modern science was based on a rejection of Aristotle's view. Aristotle said the whole world is alive. Animals and plants are living organisms with souls. All animals have souls. All…

…and around the magnet that could influence other magnets at a distance. The delocalized aspect of things in the philosophy of Aristotle and indeed in the philosophy right from the first Greek philosopher Thales was the soul. The magnetic field of the Earth,…

…from the Latin word anima, which means soul. So it was completely taken for granted by everybody following the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. and the Arab philosophers that we lived in a living world. The stars were intelligent beings. Each…

…cultures, in all shamanic cultures. It's what the Middle Ages in Europe had. Christian animism was the basis of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas' interpretation of Aristotle. It's what the scientific revolution rejected. But it's coming back again. And…

…what the Middle Ages in Europe had. Christian animism was the basis of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas' interpretation of Aristotle. It's what the scientific revolution rejected. But it's coming back again. And it's coming back again in a very interesting,…

…traditional theologies in the West and elsewhere and indeed in Greek philosophy. God works in the world according to Aristotle, which is pre-Christian, of course, and according to Christian theologies and according to other theologies by being attractive. God…

…tonight, I sort of heard you map out this trajectory of human thought perspective, going back, you went all the way to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and Descartes and then to Richard Dawkins and sort of modern day philosophers and atheists. Yes. Oh, that's…

…perceive as the far more disciplined scientific method, there seems to be remnants of going all the way back to Aristotle, where deterministic yes-no, 0-100, and You know, the scientific method is powerfully effective. I don't even want to debate that.…

…so to explain that, I can get back to your question. Please. In Greek thought, the most important philosopher of life was Aristotle, who was a student of Plato. And Aristotle said that all living things have souls. That's what makes them alive. They're…

…your question. Please. In Greek thought, the most important philosopher of life was Aristotle, who was a student of Plato. And Aristotle said that all living things have souls. That's what makes them alive. They're animate. They have a soul. And the Greek…

…he didn't just mean animals and plants. He meant the earth. The earth was a living thing. The planets were alive for Aristotle and the whole universe. You know, Plato thought of the whole universe as having a soul, the world soul, the anima mundi.…

…sort of thing. It was the feature of life, but life was much bigger than biology from their point of view. So when Aristotle came to biology, he said there's three levels of soul in biology. There's the vegetative soul, which shapes the body. And the…

…thought before. And what people thought before was a philosophy of nature taught in the medieval universities of Europe based on Aristotle as refined by St. Thomas Aquinas. in the 12th century. And it was a very sophisticated philosophy of nature. According…

…Aristotle as refined by St. Thomas Aquinas. in the 12th century. And it was a very sophisticated philosophy of nature. According to Aristotle and St. Thomas, all living beings had souls. And the soul of a living being was not some metaphysical thing to do…

…thought before. And what people thought before was a philosophy of nature taught in the medieval universities of Europe based on Aristotle as refined by St. Thomas Aquinas. in the 12th century. And it was a very sophisticated philosophy of nature. According…

…Aristotle as refined by St. Thomas Aquinas. in the 12th century. And it was a very sophisticated philosophy of nature. According to Aristotle and St. Thomas, all living beings had souls. And the soul of a living being was not some metaphysical thing to do…

…that was a fairly easy assimilation. Platonism was somewhat eclipsed in Europe in the Middle Ages by the rival school of Aristotle, but at the Renaissance in Europe there was a big revival of Platonism, and European intellectuals got very excited again…

…and in a sense you get a hint of that in whitehead but um For when I'm thinking about that, I go back to Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas more than Whitehead because it's clearer to me. But I think that in the context of modern science, people like…

…seen is in analytic philosophy, it's still working within what Whitehead would call a substance property ontology, which goes back to Aristotle. And in so many ways, I think Whitehead is very Aristotelian. And I think of Aristotle as a neoplatonist, right?…

…ontology, which goes back to Aristotle. And in so many ways, I think Whitehead is very Aristotelian. And I think of Aristotle as a neoplatonist, right? But Whitehead's taking Aristotle's organic philosophy and putting it on a processual ground instead of a…

…In the Middle Ages in Europe, there was a fairly unified philosophy of nature, a holistic view of nature, based on Aristotle and Plato, mainly Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, who Christianized a lot of the Aristotelian thought, based very much on Arabic…

…in Europe, there was a fairly unified philosophy of nature, a holistic view of nature, based on Aristotle and Plato, mainly Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, who Christianized a lot of the Aristotelian thought, based very much on Arabic philosophy. And This…

…it. That's very interesting, the origins there, because, of course, the word itself is much older. I think philosophers have argued that Aristotle, so this is in the fourth century BC, coins the word energy. And it does have the notion of work that you…

…energy. And it does have the notion of work that you mentioned there. Energy is that which does the work. But with Aristotle, though, there's as with all the ancient and indeed the medieval figures before the 16th century, as you mentioned there, there's…

…course didn't really exist in the sense we mean that back then, but in the sense of a kind of presence, of actuality. Aristotle contrasts energy with potentiality. So the potential is that which could be born, and then energy is that which is born. And…

…strangely. And another word that does a very fascinating about-turn is related. It's the word automaton. Plato even, let alone Aristotle, had talked about that which is automatic. But for him, it meant that which is self-organising, self-moving. And that was…

…energy meant in a more psychological or spiritual sense. Energy is a word that is used there. And in the original context of Aristotle and so on, that was completely natural. Energy was seen to be the movement of soul or was the vital presence of God.…

…are psyches or souls throughout nature. Philosophy in Christian Europe in the Middle Ages was essentially animist. The philosophy of Aristotle, modified by St. Thomas Aquinas, taught that all animals have souls, all plants have souls, the soul is the form…

…the past towards the future. Again, in the Middle Ages, in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and in the philosophy of Aristotle, to explain everything, you had to have not just the physical cause and the matter of which something is made, you also…

…have the goal or the intention towards which something was attracted. Everything in nature was attracted towards a goal, according to Aristotle. A growing animal or plant is attracted towards the goal of reaching its mature form. A hungry dog is attracted…

…We've had it for a long time. In the Middle Ages, the philosophy of the Middle Ages was very much influenced by Aristotle as reinterpreted by St. Thomas Aquinas, who was one of the leading philosophers in the 13th century. And that started a kind…

…Basically, Europe was dominated by a kind of Christian animism, which gave rise to the cathedrals. The official doctrine, based on Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, was that nature is alive, animals and plants are living beings with souls. That's why the…

…it was thought to be alive and conscious by the ancient Greeks. And in the philosophy of the Middle Ages, influenced by Aristotle, refined by St. Thomas Aquinas, the whole Earth was considered to be alive, The suns, planets and stars were considered to be…

…philosophers in Europe, in the universities and in the cathedral schools. They were also influenced very much by the philosophy of Aristotle. who thought that all living beings have souls. The soul is the form of the body. It's what shapes the body…