I may have overstated the case in my previous posting, which unintentionally sounded like scientism. Obviously science is not the be-all and end-all of Knowledge with a capital K. You can’t know the human condition without the humanities. Existence would be dreary indeed without our literature, art, mythology (including religion), and undeniably other aspects of our material existence as people that lie outside the reach of empirical science.
My point is that in 10,000 years or so of recorded civilization, man’s eternal quest to grasp existence underwent a gigantic step—a big bang of knowledge, so to speak—beginning with the scientific revolution of only the most recent 2 or 3 of centuries. Very recent in the pageant of history.
The much-venerated Aristotle probably set back the cause of physics for 2000 years by arguing (from essentially an armchair, i.e., non-empirical premises) that a body in motion comes to rest and a body in constant motion requires a constant force. (I’m not sure exactly what Aristotle said, but that was the gist of it). This is completely wrong and finally got straightened out by Isaac Newton.
Aristotle made important contributions to early western thought & may be excused for not understanding friction as a force distinct from gravity. It shows how a philosophy may be self-consistent, yet lack external validation.
Not that I’m making any value judgments here.
One of my favorite Richard Feynman quotes: What men are poets who may speak of Jupiter if he is a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?