Aristotle on the Matter of Form A... | Buy

Summary

Argues for an interdependent relationship of form and matter in Aristotle's metaphysics

Adriel M. Trott challenges the wholesale acceptance of the view that nature operates in Aristotle's work on a craft model, which implies that matter has no power of its own. Instead, she argues for a robust sense of matter in Aristotle in response to feminist critiques. She finds resources for thinking the female's contribution (and the female itself) on its own terms and not as the contrary to form, or the male.

Using the image of a Möbius strip, Trott considers how semen and menses flow through Aristotle's account of generation. She weaves together scholarship on matter, form and generation in Aristotle; on the mythological, Hippocratic and Pre-Socratic treatments of the feminine and the elemental; and on feminist readings of material. In doing so, she demonstrates the interdependence of form and matter in Aristotle's biology.

Author Biography

Adriel Trott is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wabash College. She is the author of Aristotle on the Nature of Community (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Introduction
Method
Historical Approaches
One-Sex and Two-Sex Models
The Problem of Aristotle and the One- and Two-Sex Models
Material Evidence

1. Feminist Critics of Aristotle's Biology and Metaphysics
The Feminist Disputes
Feminist Critics Who Say Aristotle's Biology is Sexist
Critics Who Say Aristotle's Biology is Not Sexist
Feminist Critics and Defenders of Aristotle's Metaphysics
Conclusion

2. Disputes Over the Material Contribution of Semen
Robust Material View versus Restricted Material View
Material Necessity and Teleology
Aristotle and Plato on Form
Conclusion

3. Aristotle on Material
Beyond Prime Matter
Physics I 7: Change and the Substratum
Metaphysics VII 3: Substance as Substratum
De Caelo IV 5: The Elements in Common
How Matter is Many
On Generation and Corruption
Matter in Natural Substances: Generation as a Problem
Soul as the Actuality of the Body: The User and the Implement
The Ways of Being Acted Upon: Like and Unlike

4. The Feminine and the Elemental in Greek Myth, Medicine and Early Philosophy
Gender, Generation and the Gods
The Elemental Among the Pre-Socratics
Hippocratics, Elemental Powers and Gender
Conclusion

5. Semen, Menses, Blood: Material in Generation
Concoction as Mastery of the Moisture
Internalised Heat: From Blood to Semen
Material and Teleology in Aristotle's Meteorology
How Semen is a Causal Part
Material Composition of Semen
Sources of Vital Heat: Stomach, Sun and Earth

6. Sex Differentiation, Inheritance and the Meaning of Form in Generation
'The Female is, As it Were, Deformed.'
How Sex Differentiation Explains the Work of Form and Matter
How Inherited Traits Explain the Role of Form
Contradiction and Contrariety

7. Craft and Other Metaphors
Craft Analogy Explains Why Generation Needs Males and Why it Happens in Females
Craft Analogy Explains How Semen Actualises Form
Other Images and Metaphors

Conclusion: On Material in Aristotle's Biology
Conclusion
Revisiting the One-Sex and Two-Sex Models
The Möbius Strip

Bibliography; Index Locurum; Index

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