Talk:John Philoponus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Stub	This article has been rated as stub-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

	Philosophy Portal This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.
Additional information: Related task forces (major fields): Philosophers Related task forces (periods): Ancient philosophy

	Greece Portal This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Greece, an attempt to expand, improve and standardize the content and structure of articles related to Greece.
If you would like to participate, you can improve John Philoponus, or sign up and contribute in a wider array of articles like those on our to do list. If you have any questions, please consult the FAQ.
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale. (comments)
???	This article has not yet been prioritized.
Additional information: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked

This article has been automatically assessed as Stub-Class by WikiProject Greece because it uses a stub template. If you agree with the assessment, please remove {{WPGR}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page. If you disagree with the assessment, please change it by editing the class parameter of the {{WPGR}} template, removing {{WPGR}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page, and removing the stub template from the article.

	Middle Ages Portal John Philoponus is part of WikiProject Middle Ages, a project for the community of Wikipedians who are interested in the Middle Ages. For more information, see the project page and the newest articles.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Article Grading: The article has not been rated for quality and/or importance yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
WikiProject Middle Ages To do:

[edit] Influences: query on sources for an assertion

Are there any sources concerning the influence on Galileo, or is this an assumption (commonly made and often groundlessly) that since he did impetus and Galileo did inertia, he must have been an influence? Dandrake 08:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed deletion

The Article currently says:

"He is credited with establishing some of the foundations for modern, more critical thought and scientific analysis, breaking with some of the more flawed aspects of Aristotelian and Platonic logic by disproving their theory of gravity.

As regards the natural motion of bodies falling through a medium, Aristotle's verdict that the speed is proportional to the weight of the moving bodies and indirectly proportional to the density of the medium is disproved by Philoponus through appeal to the same kind of experiment that Galileo was to carry out centuries later (In Phys. 682-84)."

But this is just too nebulous to be really helpful. What is it about Aristotle’s law that is supposed to have been refuted and exactly what Galileo experiment is supposed to have refuted it ? And how did allegedly refuting both Aristotle’s and also Plato’s theories of gravity also refute their logics ? This is essentially incoherent nonsense. Propose its deletion until something better can be done.

See the Logicus discussion on Philoponus in Galileo Talk of 29 February 2008. Philoponus said:

"But if bodies in themselves have more or less downward tendency, they will obviously have such a difference among themselves even if they move in a void and the same distance in a void will be traversed in less time by the heavier and in more by the lighter, not because of being more or less obstructed, but because of having a greater or lesser downward tendency in proportion to the difference in their natural weight." Physics 679.19-23 [p335 The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD Richard Sorabji 2004 Duckworth] --Logicus (talk) 18:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)