Editing Natural science (section)

===Aristotelian natural philosophy (400 BC–1100 AD)===
[[File: Aristotle's model of Inheritance.png|thumb|upright=1.3|left|Aristotle's view of inheritance, as a model of the transmission of patterns of movement of the body fluids from parents to child, and of [[Hylomorphism|Aristotelian form]] from the father]]
{{further|Aristotle's biology}}

Later [[Socrates|Socratic]] and [[Plato]]nic thought focused on ethics, morals, and art and did not attempt an investigation of the physical world; Plato criticized pre-Socratic thinkers as materialists and anti-religionists.{{sfn|Grant|2007|pp=21–22}} [[Aristotle]], however, a student of Plato who lived from 384 to 322 BC, paid closer attention to the natural world in his philosophy.{{sfn|Grant|2007|pp=27–28}} In his ''[[History of Animals]]'', he described the inner workings of 110 species, including the [[stingray]], [[catfish]] and [[bee]].{{sfn|Grant|2007|pp=33–34}} He investigated chick embryos by breaking open eggs and observing them at various stages of development.{{sfn|Grant|2007|p=34}} Aristotle's works were influential through the 16th century, and he is considered to be the [[Aristotle's biology|father of biology for his pioneering work in that science]].{{sfn|Grant|2007|pp=34–35}} He also presented philosophies about physics, nature, and astronomy using [[inductive reasoning]] in his works ''[[Physics (Aristotle)|Physics]]'' and ''[[Meteorology (Aristotle)|Meteorology]]''.{{sfn|Grant|2007|pp=37–39, 53}}

[[File:Sanzio 01 Plato Aristotle.jpg|thumb|upright|Plato (left) and Aristotle in [[The School of Athens|a 1509 painting]] by [[Raphael]]. Plato rejected inquiry into natural philosophy as against religion, while his student, Aristotle, created a body of work on the natural world that influenced generations of scholars.]]

While Aristotle considered natural philosophy more seriously than his predecessors, he approached it as a theoretical branch of science.{{sfn|Grant|2007|p=52}} Still, inspired by his work, [[Ancient Rome|Ancient Roman]] philosophers of the early 1st century AD, including [[Lucretius]], [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] and [[Pliny the Elder]], wrote treatises that dealt with the rules of the natural world in varying degrees of depth.{{sfn|Grant|2007|p=95}} Many [[Ancient Rome|Ancient Roman]] [[Neoplatonism|Neoplatonists]] of the 3rd to the 6th centuries also adapted Aristotle's teachings on the physical world to a philosophy that emphasized spiritualism.{{sfn|Grant|2007|pp=54, 59}} Early [[medieval]] philosophers including [[Macrobius]], [[Calcidius]] and [[Martianus Capella]] also examined the physical world, largely from a cosmological and [[cosmography|cosmographical]] perspective, putting forth theories on the arrangement of celestial bodies and the heavens, which were posited as being composed of [[aether (classical element)|aether]].{{sfn|Grant|2007|p=103}}

Aristotle's works on natural philosophy continued to be translated and studied amid the rise of the [[Byzantine Empire]] and [[Abbasid Caliphate]].{{sfn|Grant|2007|pp=61–66}}

In the Byzantine Empire, [[John Philoponus]], an Alexandrian Aristotelian commentator and Christian theologian, was the first to question Aristotle's physics teaching. Unlike Aristotle, who based his physics on verbal argument, Philoponus instead relied on observation and argued for observation rather than resorting to a verbal argument.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mcgrew/philfall.htm|title=John Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, pp|website=homepages.wmich.edu|access-date=2018-04-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160111105753/http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mcgrew/philfall.htm|archive-date=2016-01-11|url-status=dead}}</ref> He introduced the [[theory of impetus]]. John Philoponus' criticism of Aristotelian principles of physics served as inspiration for Galileo Galilei during the [[Scientific Revolution]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/philoponus/|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|first=Christian|last=Wildberg|editor-first=Edward N.|editor-last=Zalta|date=8 March 2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=9 May 2023|archive-date=22 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190822110331/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/philoponus/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Lindberg, David. (1992) ''The Beginnings of Western Science''. University of Chicago Press. Page 162.</ref>

A revival in mathematics and science took place during the time of the [[Abbasid Caliphate]] from the 9th century onward, when Muslim scholars expanded upon Greek and [[India]]n natural philosophy.{{sfn|Barr|2006|p=11}} The words ''[[Alcohol (disambiguation)|alcohol]]'', ''[[algebra]]'' and ''[[zenith]]'' all have [[Arabic]] roots.{{sfn|Barr|2006|pp=11–12}}