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to contradictions.
The Socratic method searches for general commonly-held truths that shape beliefs
and scrutinizes them for consistency.[57] Socrates criticized the older type of study of physics as too
purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism.[58]
Aristotle in the 4th century BCE created a systematic program of teleological philosophy.[59] In the 3rd
century BCE, Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos was the first to propose a heliocentric
model of the universe, with the Sun at the center and all the planets orbiting it.[60] Aristarchus's model
was widely rejected because it was believed to violate the laws of physics, [60] while
Ptolemy's Almagest, which contains a geocentric description of the Solar System, was accepted
through the early Renaissance instead. [61][62] The inventor and mathematician Archimedes of
Syracuse made major contributions to the beginnings of calculus.[63] Pliny the Elder was a Roman
writer and polymath, who wrote the seminal encyclopedia Natural History.[64][65][66]
Middle Ages
Main article: History of science § Middle Ages
The first page of Vienna Dioscurides depicts a peacock, made in the 6th century
Due to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the 5th century saw an intellectual decline in
western Europe.[67]: 307, 311, 363, 402 During the period, Latin encyclopedists such as Isidore of
Seville preserved the majority of general ancient knowledge. [68] In contrast, because the Byzantine
Empire resisted attacks from invaders, they were able to preserve and improve prior learning. John
Philoponus, a Byzantine scholar in the 500s, started to question Aristotle's teaching of physics,
noting its flaws.[67]: 307, 311, 363, 402 His criticism served as an inspiration to medieval scholars and Galileo
Galilei, who ten centuries later extensively cited his works.[67][69]
During late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, natural phenomena were mainly examined via the
Aristotelian approach. The approach includes Aristotle's four causes: material, formal, moving, and
final cause.[70] Many Greek classical texts were preserved by the Byzantine
empire and Arabic translations were done by groups such as the Nestorians and the Monophysites.
Under the Caliphate, these Arabic translations were later improved and developed by Arabic
scientists.[71] By the 6th and 7th centuries, the neighboring Sassanid Empire established the
medical Academy of Gondeshapur, which is considered by Greek, Syriac, and Persian physicians as
the most important medical center of the ancient world. [72]
The House of Wisdom was established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq,[73] where the Islamic study
of Aristotelianism flourished[74] until the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Ibn al-Haytham, better
known as Alhazen, began experimenting as a means to gain knowledge [75][76] and disproved Ptolemy's
theory of vision[77]: Book I, [6.54]. p. 372 Avicenna's compilation of the Canon of Medicine, a medical
encyclopedia, is considered to be one of the most important publications in medicine and was used
until the 18th century.[78]
By the eleventh century, most of Europe had become Christian, [7] and in 1088, the University of
Bologna emerged as the first university in Europe. [79] As such, demand for Latin translation of ancient
and scientific texts grew,[7] a major contributor to the Renaissance of the 12th century.
Renaissance scholasticism in western Europe flourished, with experiments done by observing,
describing, and classifying subjects in nature. [80] In the 13rd century, medical teachers and students
at Bologna began opening human bodies, leading to the ﬁrst anatomy textbook based on human
dissection by Mondino de Luzzi.[81]
Renaissance
Main articles: Scientific Revolution and Science in the Renaissance
Drawing of the heliocentric model as proposed by the Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
New developments in optics played a role in the inception of the Renaissance, both by challenging
long-held metaphysical ideas on perception, as well as by contributing to the improvement and
development of technology such as the camera obscura and the telescope. At the start of the
Renaissance, Roger Bacon, Vitello, and John Peckham each built up a scholastic ontology upon a
causal chain beginning with sensation, perception, and finally apperception of the individual and
universal forms of Aristotle.[77]: Book I A model of vision later known as perspectivism was exploited and
studied by the artists of the Renaissance. This theory uses only three of Aristotle's four causes:
formal, material, and final.[82]
In the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a heliocentric model of the Solar System,
stating that the planets revolve around the Sun, instead of the geocentric model where the planets
and the Sun revolve around the Earth. This was based on a theorem that the orbital periods of the
planets are longer as their orbs are farther from the center of motion, which he found not to agree
with Ptolemy's model.[83]
Johannes Kepler and others challenged the notion that the only function of the eye is perception,
and shifted the main focus in optics from the eye to the propagation of light. [82][84] Kepler is best
known, however, for improving Copernicus' heliocentric model through the discovery of Kepler's laws
of planetary motion. Kepler did not reject Aristotelian metaphysics and described his work as a
search for the Harmony of the Spheres.[85] Galileo had made significant contributions to astronomy,
physics and engineering. However, he became persecuted after Pope Urban VIII sentenced him for
writing about the heliocentric model. [86]
The printing press was widely used to publish scholarly arguments, including some that disagreed
widely with contemporary ideas of nature. [87] Francis Bacon and René Descartes published
philosophical arguments in favor of a new type of non-Aristotelian science. Bacon emphasized the
importance of experiment over contemplation, questioned the Aristotelian concepts of formal and
final cause, promoted the idea that science should study the laws of nature and the improvement of
all human life.[88] Descartes emphasized individual thought and argued that mathematics rather than
geometry should be used to study nature. [89]
Age of Enlightenment
Main article: Science in the Age of Enlightenment
Title page of the 1687 first edition of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Issac Newton
At the start of the Age of Enlightenment, Isaac Newton formed the foundation of classical

mechanics by his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, greatly influencing future physicists.
[90]
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz incorporated terms from Aristotelian physics, now used in a new non-
teleological way. This implied a shift in the view of objects: objects were now considered as having
no innate goals. Leibniz assumed that different types of things all work according to the same
general laws of nature, with no special formal or final causes.[91]
During this time, the declared purpose and value of science became producing wealth
and inventions that would improve human lives, in the materialistic sense of having more food,
clothing, and other things. In Bacon's words, "the real and legitimate goal of sciences is the
endowment of human life with new inventions and riches", and he discouraged scientists from
pursuing intangible philosophical or spiritual ideas, which he believed contributed little to human
happiness beyond "the fume of subtle, sublime or pleasing [speculation]". [92]
Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies[93] and academies, which had
largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development. Societies and
academies were the backbones of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important
development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population.
[94]
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors – Galileo, Boyle, and
Newton principally – as the guides to every physical and social field of the day. [95]
The 18th century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine[96] and physics;[97] the
development of biological taxonomy by Carl Linnaeus;[98] a new understanding
of magnetism and electricity;[99] and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline.[100] Ideas on human
nature, society, and economics evolved during the Enlightenment. Hume and other Scottish
Enlightenment thinkers developed A Treatise of Human Nature, which was expressed historically in
works by authors including James Burnett, Adam Ferguson, John Millar and William Robertson, all
of whom merged a scientific study of how humans behaved in ancient and primitive cultures with a
strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity.[101] Modern sociology largely originated from
this movement.[102] In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, which is often considered
the first work on modern economics.[103]

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