Medieval natural philosophy (1100–1600)

Medieval natural philosophy (1100–1600)

In the late Middle Ages, Spanish philosopher Dominicus Gundissalinus translated a treatise by the earlier Arab scholar Al-Farabi called On the Sciences into Latin, calling the study of the mechanics of nature scientia naturalis, or natural science.

Gundissalinus also proposed his own classification of the natural sciences in his 1150 work On the Division of Philosophy. This was the first detailed classification of the sciences based on Greek and Arab philosophy to reach Western Europe. Gundissalinus defined natural science as "the science considering only things unabstracted and with motion," as opposed to mathematics and sciences that rely on mathematics.

 Following Al-Farabi, he then separated the sciences into eight parts, including physics, cosmology, meteorology, minerals science and plant and animal science.

Later philosophers made their own classifications of the natural sciences. Robert Kilwardby wrote On the Order of the Sciences in the 13th century that classed medicine as a mechanical science, along with agriculture, hunting and theater while defining natural science as the science that deals with bodies in motion.[36] Roger Bacon, an English friar and philosopher, wrote that natural science dealt with "a principle of motion and rest, as in the parts of the elements of fire, air, earth and water, and in all inanimate things made from them." These sciences also covered plants, animals and celestial bodies. 

Later in the 13th century, Catholic priest and theologian Thomas Aquinas defined natural science as dealing with "mobile beings" and "things which depend on matter not only for their existence, but also for their definition."

There was wide agreement among scholars in medieval times that natural science was about bodies in motion, although there was division about the inclusion of fields including medicine, music and perspective. Philosophers pondered questions including the existence of a vacuum, whether motion could produce heat, the colors of rainbows, the motion of the earth, whether elemental chemicals exist and where in the atmosphere rain is formed.