Compare or Contrast Essay

Topic:Differences between Art and Natural Philosophy

Art and Natural Philosophy have been a mental occupation for humans since the beginning of
the human history.Some of the first ‘’people’’ were making art in their free time.They drew
what they saw in their environment to the caves. They created pleasant sounds with using
basic instruments.After many thousand years , they started to construct their buildings in an
aesthetic way.Humankind's mental engagement with nature does not only consist of arts, but
also of first form of science:natural Philosophy. Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature was
the philosophical study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the
development of modern science.Humans tried to understand the phenomenons that occur
around them and this effort formed this area of philosophy.Although these two mental
engagements share some similarities;,they are very different in two aspects:Objectivity and the
purpose.

First of all, art and natural philosophy differ greatly when it comes to objectivity.Art originates
from human emotions;we draw the paintings of sights we find beautiful.But this beauty
perception is subjective;there isn’t any sight that all people agree on it’s beauty.Because we can
not evaluate the beauty;beauty perception is something that finds us.If it does not occur to
subject,then the object is not beautiful to him or her. In contrast,natural philosophy originated
from objective observations and logic;process of creating it does not involve emotions.People
could reject or agree on it’s accuracy.For example,the people of Ancient Greece made the
observation that the if you rub amber ,it starts to attract some small dust particles.This
observations could be verified easily by repeating the same experiment under same
conditions.In this way, objectivity-or the quality of verifiability-is a distinct different point of
art and natural philosophy.

Purposes of these two areas of human interests are different as well.People engage in all sorts
of arts to attain a feeling of aesthetic pleasure or entertainment.When we look at a painting we
find beautiful, we feel a mysterious pleasure;an aspiration to be there,or a wish to know more
about the context.When we listen a song,we experience different feelings such as yearning or
joy.When we watch a entertaining play,we have fun. On the other hand,people engaged in
natural philosophy to attain knowledge the knowledge of phenomenons and their
causes.People observed a phenomenon,and formulated theories and speculations to explain it’s
causes.Although the entertainment and delight usually accompanies these activities,they are
not the main purpose of it.

To sum up,the differences between natural philosophy and art,objectivity and the purpose ,is
evident.There are some similarities,of course,because the doer of the activities is
same:human.However we gave this engagements different names,because their essence
consists of different things.And understanding these key differences is an important factor to
distinguish these two.