Aristotle's Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science

by James G. Lennox

• ISBN13: 9780521650274
• ISBN10: 0521650275
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-12-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In addition to being one of the world’s most influential philosophers, Aristotle can also be credited with the creation of both the science of biology and the philosophy of biology. He was the first thinker to treat the investigations of the living world as a distinct inquiry with its own special concepts and principles. This book focuses on a seminal event in the history of biology - Aristotle’s delineation of a special branch of theoretical knowledge devoted to the systematic investigation of animals. Aristotle approached the creation of zoology with the tools of subtle and systematic philosophies of nature and of science that were then carefully tailored to the investigation of animals. The papers collected in this volume, written by a pre-eminent figure in the field of Aristotle’s philosophy and biology, examine Aristotle’s approach to biological inquiry and explanation, his concepts of matter, form and kind, and his teleology.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xv
List of Abbreviations	xvii
Introduction	xix
PART I. INQUIRY AND EXPLANATION
Introduction	1	(6)
Divide and Explain: The Posterior Analytics in Practice	7	(32)
Between Data and Demonstration: The Analytics and the Historia Animalium	39	(33)
Aristotelian Problems	72	(26)
Putting Philosophy of Science to the Test: The Case of Aristotle's Biology	98	(12)
The Disappearance of Aristotle's Biology: A Hellenistic Mystery	110	(21)
PART II. MATTER, FORM AND KIND
Introduction	127	(4)
Are Aristotelian Species Eternal?	131	(29)
Kinds, Forms of Kinds, and the More and the Less in Aristotle's Biology	160	(22)
Material and Formal Natures in Aristotle's De Partibus Animalium	182	(23)
Nature Does Nothing in Vain ...	205	(24)
PART III. TELEOLOGICAL EXPLANATION
Introduction	225	(4)
Teleology, Chance, and Aristotle's Theory of Spontaneous Generation	229	(21)
Aristotle on Chance	250	(9)
Theophrastus on the Limits of Teleology	259	(21)
Plato's Unnatural Teleology	280	(23)
Works Cited	303	(10)
Index	313