Minima naturalia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The doctrine of the minima naturalia is a theory from the Middle Ages and early modern times , according to which a physical body cannot be divided indefinitely without losing its essential properties; see. Materia great .

The origin of this theory is an Aristotle interpretation, which was worked out in particular by Averroes , who derived this thesis from various passages of the work Physics and other works such as the meteorology of Aristotle . Aristotle himself rejected the existence of minima in the sense of the smallest particles. Against the background of his biological considerations, he discussed the question as to whether there are limits to divisibility. For him, the plants and animals that occur have certain quantitative upper and lower limits. And it was evident to Aristotle that the same is true of the parts of these things. In doing so, however, he overlooked the fact that he had no justification for the fact that the smallest particles cannot be further divided. The theory of the minima naturalia stands in fundamental opposition to the atomism of Democritus and Epicurus . The differences are particularly in the following:

  • Fabrics each have their own minima, which differ in their properties for all fabrics.
  • The minima have their own size for each type of fabric.
  • The geometric shape of the minima is not specified.
  • Through mutual action, the minima create new qualities (qualitas media) and thus new materials (forma mixta).

According to Averroes, the minima are the first thing that emerges from the formless primordial matter when a substance arises, and the last thing that remains when a substance disappears. Averroes discussed this in his commentary on the physics of Aristotle using the example of fire. If you divide a fire over and over again, it will eventually pass because it takes a minimum of quantity to exist as a fire. According to Averroes, however, mathematical entities like a line can be divided infinitely often as long as such a line is not a physical body. He saw the need for a natural minimum in the fact that every substance changes in a specific way, for example through growth or shrinkage. There are natural limits to the quantity for this.

The theory has been reinterpreted over and over again over the course of time. Thomas Aquinas held fast to the infinite divisibility of matter and saw the limit determined by the form. From a certain small size onwards, a combination of matter and form can no longer maintain its form if it is further divided. Aegidius Romanus distinguished between certain matter, which is extensive and has a measurable size, on the one hand, and indefinite matter, which is the basis of all substances and as such is not subject to any changes. This idea corresponds to the later formulated statements about the conservation of mass or energy. Mathematical quantities have no upper and no lower limit. The indefinite matter has an upper limit because the matter cannot be increased, but it is indefinitely divisible. Only for a certain matter is there a lower limit of size below which it loses its characteristic properties. Roger Bacon looked at the question of minima from the aspect of effect. Substances can be shared continuously and indefinitely, but below a certain limit they lose their effect. Linked to this is the idea that effects depend on the size of an object. If a particle becomes too small, then it loses the power to act on other objects. Similar views can later be found in Albertus Magnus , Siger von Brabant or Richard von Mediavilla . With the Scotists , Walter Burleigh differentiated between homogeneous things that are infinitely divisible and heterogeneous things with limited divisibility such as living beings and thus advocated a theory that was closely based on the original Aristotelian text.

At the beginning of modern times, the theory of minima naturalia is linked with atomistics by the physician Daniel Sennert , who rejected the infinite divisibility of bodies and instead taught that nature stops at certain smallest particles when it comes to dissolving and creating bodies . Similarly, Johan Baptista van Helmont conceived the minima naturalia as the smallest parts of substances atomistically. Based on Paracelsus, he linked this theory with a theory of the germs of things (semina rerum), according to which qualitative changes in substances cannot only be explained mechanistically, but spiritual forces must also act at the same time. The work of Sennert and von Helmont were important steps in the transition from alchemy to modern chemistry , without abandoning certain assumptions of antiquity such as the four-element theory .

literature

  • Anneliese Maier : The forerunners of Galileo in the 14th century. Studies on the natural philosophy of late scholasticism , Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome 1949, 155–215
  • John Emery Murdoch : The Medieval and Renaissance Tradition of Minima naturalia , in: Christoph Herbert Lüthy, John Emery Murdoch, William Royall Newman (Eds.): Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories , Brill, Leiden 2001, 91-131
  • Vasilii Zubov : On the history of the struggle between atomism and Aristotelianism in the 17th century (Minima Naturalia and Mixtio) , 1960

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kurt von Fritz: Grundprobleme der Geschichte der Antique Wissenschaft, de Gruyter, Berlin 1971, 92 FN 168, with reference to Aristotle's remarks on the Apeiron in Physik III 4, 202b, as well as to De caelo 271b, De generatione et corruptione 328a
  2. ↑ Anneliese Maier: The forerunners of Galileo in the 14th century: Studies on the natural philosophy of late scholasticism, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome 1949, 180-181
  3. ^ Eduard J. Dijksterhuis: Die Mechanisierung des Weltbildes, reprint of the German first edition from 1956, Springer, Berlin 1983, 231–232
  4. ↑ Andrew G. Van Melsen: From Atomos to Atom: The History of the Concept Atom, New York 1960, reprint Dover, Mineola 2004, 59
  5. ^ Anneliese Maier: The forerunners of Galileo in the 14th century. Studies on the natural philosophy of late scholasticism, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome 1949, 155–215, esp. 181ff
  6. ^ Klaus Mainzer: Matter. From primordial matter to life, Beck, Munich 1996, 18
  7. ^ Anneliese Maier: The forerunners of Galileo in the 14th century. Studies on the natural philosophy of late scholasticism, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome 1949, 181–182
  8. ^ Anneliese Maier: The forerunners of Galileo in the 14th century. Studies on the natural philosophy of late scholasticism, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome 1949, 155–215, 183
  9. ^ Andrew G. Van Melsen: From Atomos to Atom: The History of the Concept Atom, New York 1960, reprint Dover, Mineola 2004, 62
  10. ↑ Roger Ariew: Descartes Among the Scholastics, Brill, Leiden 2011, 166-168
  11. ↑ Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino: From Corpuscels to Elements: Chemical Ontologies from Van Helmont to Lavoisier in: Eric Scerri, Lee McIntyre (Eds.): Philosophy of Chemistry: Growth of a New Discipline, Springer, Dordrecht 2014, 141–154, here 143