An initial problem with this position is that ancient science, whose achievements are not
disputed, was itself Aristotelian more often than not, at least in its approach to the physical
universe; many important scientists of antiquity adhered to the Middle Platonist synthesis,
which applied Aristotle’s basic framework to the material world, and a transformed version
of Platonic thought to the immaterial world. This is an important fact to keep in mind when
considering medieval science, since the Middle Ages read Aristotle through the lenses of the Aristotelian commentators of mid- and late antiquity (and to a lesser extent through
Muslim and Jewish commentators), who were generally working out of this synthesis, and
who often added elements to Aristotle’s system, or presented alternatives to parts of his
system.5 Epicureanism, on the other hand, whose atomism was the closest equivalent in
antiquity to the anti-Aristotelian philosophical positions celebrated by the Enlightenment
view, did not make any significant contributions to science. (Epicurus himself was notorious
for claiming in his letter to Pythocles that the sun was more or less the size it appears
to be to us, about 30 cm across as Cicero recounts it, and his followers were hostile to the
very notion of geometry.6)