Archimede aristotelico o platonico: "tertium non datur"?

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to continue a critical study on Hellenistic Sciences. Such a study began with some previous papers on Euclid, where some remarkable aspects of the Alexandrinian mathematician emerged; in particular, we focused on some characters, innovative with respect to the previous Greek philosophical tradition and undervalued until now by historiography and critical literature. Here, the figure of Archimedes is analysed in the light of previous results and consequent criteria; he is freed from a long tradition, started with Plutarch, that sees the Sicilian scientist inside a Platonistic (in some sense) paradigm or, inversely, in an Aristotelian one. The re-reading of his works in the light of the new hypotheses, as expressed by other authors and scholars, allows us to delineate a more pragmatic and modern figure of scientist. In particular, some metaphysical problems as those concerning the Truth and Prime Causes, that were central in the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition, are in such a way avoided or suspended, in favour of more exact and appropriate modelling tools that make the phenomenical world more predictable and controllable also by technologies.