Physics

Metaphysics

• Predicables
  • Genus (génos)
  • Species (ī̂dos)
  • Difference (diaphorá)
  • Property (ídion)
  • Accident (symbebicós)
• Categories
  • Essence/Substance (usía)
  • Quantity (posón)
  • Relation (prós ti)
  • Quality (pœón)
  • Time (póte)
  • Place (pû)
  • Position (cī̂sthæ)
  • State/Habit (échīn)
  • Energy/Act (enérgīa/pœeîn)
  • Passion (páschīn)
• Quanta
  • Number
  • Speech
  • Time
  • Space
  • Line
  • Surface
  • Solid
• Qualities
  • Habit & Disposition
  • Potency & Impotency
  • Affection & Passivity
  • Shape & Form

John of Damascus, St. “Philosophical Chapters” in: The Fount of Knowledge.

Porphyry. Isagoge.

Aristotle. Categories.

Elements

• Fire – Heat
• Air – Cold
• Water – Wet
• Earth – Dry

Some class æther as a fifth element (quintessence), while others consider it a special kind of fire. At any rate, it is celestial.

John of Damascus, St. “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” in: The Fount of Knowledge.

Measurements

• Length
  • Digit/Finger – 1/16 ft.
  • Inch – 1/12 ft.
  • Palm – 1/4 ft.
  • Foot
  • Cubit – 1 1/2 ft.
  • Stade – 600 ft.
  • Mile – 5000 ft.
• Weight
  • Ounce – 1/12 lb.
  • Pound/Libra

Pound based on weight of coins, e.g. 72 solidii = 1 lb.

Color

• White
• Black
• Yellow
• Red
• Blue

White is the dilation of light, and black, the contraction of light; yellow, red, and blue then being ratios of white and black.

Now the rainbow is composed of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The gay pride flag omits indigo, thus making it a false rainbow.

Plato. Timæus.

Soul

• Aspects
  • Intelligent
  • Incensive
  • Appetative
• Faculties
  • Intellect/Mind (noûs)
  • Reason (diánoia)
  • Conception (epínoia)
  • Fantasy/Imagination (phantasía)

Imagination, and so sense-perception, functions through the anterior ventricles of the brain, reason, through the middle ventricle, and memory, through the posterior ventricle.

The separate senses are collected together by imagination, which then communicates it, via reason, to the mind.

John of Damascus, St. “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” in: The Fount of Knowledge.

Body

• Humors
  • Yellow Bile
  • Blood
  • Phlegm
  • Black Bile
• Senses
  • Sight
  • Hearing
  • Smell
  • Taste
  • Touch
• Parts
  • Head
  • Trunk
  • Arms
  • Legs

Touch is sometimes omitted as a common background sense.

Food is eaten through the mouth, passed down to the stomach, which converts what is nutritious into a liquid and gives it to the liver, and sends what isn’t nutritious down to the intestines to be exited. The liver converts the liquid from the stomach into blood, and then distributes it throughout the body via the veins. The kidneys catch the spent watery part of the blood, which acted as its vehicle along the veins, and sends it down to the bladder to be exited.

Air is inhaled through the nostrils into the lungs, which hold it. The heart takes the air from the lungs according to its rythem, heats, then distributes breath throughout the body via the arteries. It also takes the expired breath from the arteries and sends it to the lungs to be exited. As the arteries contract with pulsation, the blood from the veins is drawn into the artery and infused with breath, which then sends it back out into the veins with pulsation.

John of Damascus, St. “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” in: The Fount of Knowledge.

Nemesius of Emesa, Bp. On the Nature of Man.

Galen. On the Usefulness of Parts.

Iamblichus. The Theology of Arithmetic.

Medicine

• Diet
• Pharmacology
• Surgery

Galen. On the Faculties of Aliments, On the Natural Faculties, and On the Usefulness of Parts.

Plants

• Parts
  • Root
  • Stem
  • Bark
  • Leaf
  • Fruit
• Genera/Types
  • Tree
  • Shrub
  • Under-shrub
  • Herb

Theophrastus. Enquiry into Plants.