Science and the Fine Arts: Reflections of Platonic Idealism and of Aristotelian Naturalism

The scientific explanation of natural phenomena by means of postulatory-deductive theoretical structures originated in the classical Greek world about 600 B. C. In the 4th century B. C. philosophical analysis of knowledge identified three essential elements for science: the idealistic view that concepts are real and that things are unreal imitations of concepts (associated with Platonic philosophy); the naturalistic view that things are real and concepts are intellectual constructs, important but not real (associated with Aristotelian philosophy); the logical apparatus essential for the intellectual manipulation of scientific knowledge (transmitted by the writings on logic of Aristotle). Only where these three elements have been available has science occurred.

The visual fine arts faithfully follow later ascendancies of the two opposing views of reality: the highly idealistic early European Christian culture produced non-naturalistic art, extremely idealized; the dominance of the Aristotelian philosophy in the High Middle Ages was accompanied by a revival of naturalism in the arts; the Renaissance, in which both philosophical views were again available, resulted in highly naturalistic art used to portray idealistic conceptions.

It was also during the Renaissance that, for the first time since Classical Greek Antiquity, the three essential elements for science were brought together: Platonic idealism, Aristotelian naturalism and logic. It is with this event that what is called modern science began.