PHYSICS by Aristotle translated by R. P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye, appearing as a part of The Works of Aristotle, volume I; printed at Oxford by the Clarendon Press in 1930.
"The Physics is a lecture in which he seeks to determine beings that arise on their own, τὰ φύσει ὄντα, with regard to their being. Aristotelian "physics" is different from what we mean today by this word, not only to the extent that it belongs to antiquity whereas the modern physical sciences belong to modernity, rather above all it is different by virtue of the fact that Aristotle's "physics" is philosophy, whereas modern physics is a positive science that presupposes a philosophy.... This book determines the warp and woof of the whole of Western thinking, even at that place where it, as modern thinking, appears to think at odds with ancient thinking. But opposition is invariably comprised of a decisive, and often even perilous, dependence. Without Aristotle's Physics there would have been no Galileo."--Martin Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, trans. Reginald Lilly, (Indiana University Press, 1991), pp 62-63.
The Physics of Aristotle is one of the great foundation stones of Western scientific thought. This version of the work was on my website for many years and was the most-downloaded item on the menu there, with more than 20,000 downloads over a decade. It was shcoking to me that there was that much interest in the work, but, well, there it was. For some reason I've neglected to place it on this blog, and so I've done so today--it is posted in the "pages" section of this blog. Enjoy.
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