Book 3
4
And so for this reason some of the sophists, e.g. Aristippus,Founder of the Cyrenaic school in the early fourth century. spurned mathematics, on the ground that in the other arts, even the mechanical ones such as carpentry and cobbling, all explanation is of the kind because it is better or worse, while mathematics takes no account of good and bad.For a defense of mathematics see Aristot. Met. 13.3.10-12.
5
On the other hand if there are several sciences of the causes, and a different one for each different principle, which of them shall we consider to be the one which we are seeking, or whom of the masters of these sciences shall we consider to be most learned in the subject which we are investigating?
6
For it is possible for all the kinds of cause to apply to the same object; e.g. in the case of a house the source of motion is the art and the architect; the final cause is the function; the matter is earth and stones, and the form is the definition. Now to judge from our discussion some time agoCf. Aristot. Met. 1.2.5-6. as to which of the sciences should be called Wisdom, there is some case for applying the name to each of them.
7
Inasmuch as Wisdom is the most sovereign and authoritative kind of knowledge, which the other sciences, like slaves, may not contradict, the knowledge of the end and of the Good resembles Wisdom (since everything else is for the sake of the end ); but inasmuch as it has been defined as knowledge of the first principles and of the most knowable, the knowledge of the essence will resemble Wisdom.
8
For while there are many ways of understanding the same thing, we say that the man who recognizes a thing by its being something knows more than he who recognizes it by its not being something; and even in the former case one knows more than another, and most of all he who knows what it is, and not he who knows its size or quality or natural capacity for acting or being acted upon.
