The Posterior Analytics is Aristotle's main account of the nature and structure of scientific explanation. Much of its second book is concerned with scientific explanations of the essences of things. In Explaining an Eclipse, Owen Goldin presents a close analysis and commentary …
"In chapter 1 of On the Heavens Aristotle defines body, and then notoriously ruptures dynamics by introducing a fifth element, beyond Plato's four, to explain the rotation of the heavens, which, like nearly all Greeks, Aristotle took to be real, not apparent. Even a member of hi…
"In this part of the Posterior Analytics Aristotle elaborates his assessment of how universal truths of science can be scientifically explained as inevitable in demonstrative proofs. But he introduces complications: some sciences discuss phenomena that can only be explained by h…