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CATEGORIES:Colloquium
DESCRIPTION:Rega Wood\, Research Professor\, Department of Philosophy at St
 anford University
\nThe problem of&nbsp\;growth and digestion in living th
 ings as posed by Aristotle seems to force a choice between several unattra
 ctive options: (1)&nbsp\; two extended things must be in the same place\,&
 nbsp\; (2) corporeal growth must result from incorporeal nutrition\,&nbsp\
 ; (3) animals must be numerically different from their earlier selves afte
 r growing\, or (4) there must be interstitial vacua within living bodies.&
 nbsp\; 
\n&nbsp\;
\nBy contrast\, with the extramundane vacuum posited to 
 do justice to God's unlimited power\, very&nbsp\; few medieval philosopher
 s entertained the possibility that there were interstitial vacua\, and few
  modern scholars have studied&nbsp\;the history of medieval responses to t
 he problem of growth that forced consideration of interstitial vacua.&nbsp
 \; Yet the problem of growth was more basic than the problem of the place 
 of the outermost celestial sphere\, since it challenged Aristotelianism no
 t just as an account of what was supernaturally possible\, but also what w
 as naturally necessary.&nbsp\; 
\n&nbsp\;
\nAlso&nbsp\;unlike the case of 
 extramundane vacuum\, departures from Aristotle&rsquo\;s account of&nbsp\;
 growth were not prompted by theological pressure.&nbsp\; This is significa
 nt\, because for the last forty years\, scholars have argued that much of&
 nbsp\; what made medieval natural philosophy an essential part of the educ
 ation of early modern scientists was the theological pressure that&nbsp\;l
 icensed departures from orthodox Aristotelianism.&nbsp\; I suggest\, howev
 er\, that&nbsp\; theological pressure was less important&nbsp\;than my pre
 decessors have thought.&nbsp\; Rather\, what was essential about medieval 
 natural philosophy as the cultural context in which early modern science a
 rose was that the problems it addressed were brilliantly posed in a contex
 t in which only rigorously argued solutions were seriously considered.
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20091204T171500
DTSTAMP:20091124T070751Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20091204T151500
LOCATION:Building 90\, Room 92QStanford University\, Stanford\, CA USA 9430
 5
SUMMARY:Rega Wood: 'What price Horror Vacui? Revising Aristotle's Account o
 f Growth'\, Stanford Philosophy Colloquium
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