Explaining the growth of scientific knowledge: Aristotle’s view

The teleological character of Aristotle’s history of science (or philosophy) is generally recognized. However, investigations into it have not gone much beyond the mere observation of this fact (sometimes even dismissing it as a rhetorical device). By broadening our collection of data on this issue, the paper explores the hypothesis that Aristotle’s history of science is based on a philosophy of history, understood as a certain conception of the universal causes involved in the history of philosophy – causes that concern the nature of reality, that of the human mind, and the relation between them.