Concept of Projectile Motion

Aristotle's natural philosophy can be seen as an argument of the principles of motion, progressing from observation of motion that occurs in observable reality to an ever-more-simplified conception of the first motion of all, emanating from the unmoved mover. The overriding concept is that science is discussed in terms of philosophy. In Physics, Aristotle provides a logical rationale for discussing what is real, saying that what is may be actual or potential (Physics 327, et passim), or to put it another way, natural or artificial. Aristotle repeatedly makes the point that terms and conditions can be thought of in more than one way. The actuality or potentiality of existence is an important key to his statement that of whatever may exist, "some exist by nature, some from other [i.e., artificial] causes" (Physics 328).

At the center of this definition is the assertion that all existent things, natural or artificial, are subject to some category of change. Motion is central to this argument. For Aristotle, existence is either actual (which means existence was preceded by change)

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of the other. For just as we see division going on ad infinitum, so we see addition being made in the same proportion to what is already marked off" (Physics 351). Inevitably, another implication of motion is causation; after all, the process of change--division, addition, alteration--had to come from some source. Aristotle cites four causes of motion, which may sometimes converge, and declares "it is the business of the student of nature to know about them all, and if he refers his problems back to all of them, he will assign the 'why' in the way proper to his science--the matter [material], the form [formal cause], the mover [efficient cause], and that for the sake of which [final cause]" (Physics 338). This methodology of causation appears throughout the Aristotelian philosophical system, and he says that causation occurs in both natural and artificial motion. On Aristotle's view, what causes motion is the mover, and it is the mover that provides the impetus or origin of motion. The concept of impetus is needed to explain what causes something to move that has been separated or projected outward from what common sense says is its mover: the arrow projected from the bow, the cannonball projected from the cannon, the spear pro
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