"The dominant concept in Aristotle's philosophy of nature is his notion of causation. ...The final cause states that each substance has an inherent purpose. Thus there must be a purpose or design in the acorn such that it always grows into an oak tree. This aspect of existence is indicated by the word entelechy; this means the purpose that guides things to develop in one way rather than another."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
People from New York CityTravel writersUniversity of Oxford alumniPhysicists from the United StatesHistorians of science
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 291
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Freely
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
John Freely
John Freely (26 June 1926 – 20 April 2017) was an American physicist, teacher, and author of popular travel and history books on Istanbul, Athens, Venice, Turkey, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire.
8 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by John Freely →
Related Quotes
"John Philoponus (c. 490-570) of Alexandria... refuted Aristotle's theory that the velocities of falling bodies in a g…"
"Newton's proof of the law of refraction is based on an erroneous notion that light travels faster in glass than in ai…"
"Although many historians of the new millennium now take issue with the notion of a Scientific Revolution, it is gener…"
"Parmenides believed that all Being is what he called the One, and denied absolutely the possibility of change. He bel…"
"The atomic theory was not generally accepted in the time of Democritus, largely because of its deterministic characte…"
"Empedocles tried to address the problem of change by saying that there is not one fundamental arche but four—earth, w…"
"Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (0. 500—428 BC) postulated another element called the aether, which was in constant rotation…"
"In a certain sense, many of us mutilate the mind and render it impotent, for there is in the nature of man an irresis…"
"Lamb had written to Coleridge about one of their old masters, who had been a severe disciplinarian, intimating that h…"
"Dined at Gooden’s, where I met among others , the Secretary of the . He surprised me by saying that he knew Goethe on…"