The Medieval Foundation

Medieval science and intellectual thought were based not on direct observation and experience, but were heavily influenced by the Aristotelian view of nature (such as the four elements), and were further formalized by church teachings. Yet by the mid-thirteenth century Franciscan thinkers plied an observational/empirical logic to question wholesale acceptance of ancient scientific ideas, as in the impressive study of optics and the rainbow by Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175-1253) and others, with important contemporary efforts by Muslim thinkers. The heart of this critical view formalized into the new logic of nominalism, most familiarly recognized in William of Occam (c. 1285-1349) and overall as a late medieval disagreement with ancient, particularly Aristotelian, rationalization of abstractions and universals. More refined methodology resulted most effectively in the Parisian School of physical theorists, headed by Jean Buridan (c. 1297-c. 1358), who developed early...