Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek Tradition and Its Many Heirs

What is the difference between natural science and natural philosophy? “Science” was used until at least the sixteenth century to mean knowledge, especially the Aristotelian concept and model. By the eighteenth century with the development of the “scientific method” science came to be co‐terminous with what was then called “natural philosophy”. As a subject of study, involving the workings of the cosmos, analysis and synthesis of common experience, and reasoning about and explanation of nature, it is essentially theoretical. The definition given in the introduction to this work is admirably succinct. “Natural science” refers to “abstracted descriptions of phenomena intended...