Jean De Groot

It is shown that Aristotle’s references to automata in his biological treatises are meant to invoke the principle behind the ancient conception of the lever, i.e. that points on the rotating radius of a circle all move at different speeds proportional to their distances from the center. This principle is mathematical and explains a phenomenon taken as whole. Automata do not signify for him primarily a succession of material movers in contact, the modern model for mechanism. For animal locomotion and embryological development, Aristotle models his dunamis concept on the idea of mechanical potential that the lever principle displays.

In _Aristotle’s Empiricism_, Jean De Groot argues that an important part of Aristotle’s natural philosophy has remained largely unexplored and shows that much of Aristotle’s analysis of natural movement is influenced by the logic and concepts of mathematical mechanics that emerged from late Pythagorean thought. De Groot draws upon the pseudo-Aristotelian_ Physical Problems_ XVI to reconstruct the context of mechanics in Aristotle’s time and to trace the development of kinematic thinking from Archytas to the Aristotelian _Mechanics_. She shows the influence of kinematic thinking on Aristotle’s concept of power or potentiality, which she sees as having a physicalistic meaning originating in the problem of movement. De Groot identifies the source of early mechanical knowledge in kinesthetic awareness of mechanical advantage, showing the relation of Aristotle’s empiricism to more ancient experience. The book sheds light on the classical Greek understanding of imitation and device, as it questions both the claim that Aristotle’s natural philosophy codifies opinions held by convention and the view that the cogency of his scientific ideas depends on metaphysics