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

The papers collected in this 2001 volume focus on Aristotle's systematic investigation of animals.

James G. Lennox (Author)

9780521659765, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 November 2000

346 pages, 2 b/w illus. 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.51 kg

'Lennox does an excellent job of explaining what Aristotle's biology and philosophy of biology actually were'. History and Philosophy of Life Science

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 2001 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.

Part I. Inquiry and Explanation: Introduction
1. Divide and explain: the Posterior Analytics in practice
2. Between data and demonstration: the Analytics and the Historia Animalium
3. Aristotelian problems
4. Putting philosophy of science to the test: the case of Aristotle's biology
5. The disappearance of Aristotle's biology: a Hellenistic mystery
Part II. Matter, Form and Kind: Introduction
6. Are Aristotelian species eternal?
7. Kinds, forms of kinds, and the more and less in Aristotle's biology
8. Material and formal natures in Aristotle's De Partibus Animalium
9. Nature does nothing in vain…
Part III. Teleological Explanation: Introduction
10. Teleology, chance, and Aristotle's theory of spontaneous generation
11. Aristotle on chance
12. Theophrastus on the limits of teleology
13. Plato's unnatural teleology.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA]