sion he refutes the contrary-solutions as soon as he gives them in their historical setting.)
Division of the Sciences
According to Aristotle sciences are either theoretical, practical or productive (poietic). The theoretical sciences, also called speculative by Cicero and Boethius, are so named because their end is knowledge itself for its own sake. Called theoretic from the basic root signifying 'vision,' they involve contemplation of the truth as revealed in the science in question. They are not, as such, interested in any activity in the world of material goods, whether it be human action involving moral behavior or the productive activity of human artistry.The speculative sciences are classified in accordance with the different grades of separation from the material conditions of all objects of sense experience:
1.
Physics (natural philosophy) which considers ma- terial things in so far as they are involved in movement.
2.
Mathematics, which considers things of sensible ex- perience in so far as they are involved in quantification, that is, numerable or measurable.
3.
Metaphysics, which considers all things insofar forth as they are entities.
This schema of classification is based upon the power obviously present in all men of considering mentally in isolation certain aspects of sensible objects which exist in conjunction. It is quite clear that every object of sense experience is extended in three dimensions, for which reason it is discernible as a body, is numerable and measurable, that it is subject to movement either by qualitative vari- ation, quantitative increase and decrease, generation and corruption or by change of place, and that it is an entity, a reality, a being, a something which is. When the mind con- siders one aspect of sensible things by itself it is performing
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Publication Information: Book Title: Aristotle Dictionary. Contributors: Thomas P. Kiernan - editor. Publisher: Philosophical Library. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1962. Page Number: 13.
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