Aristotle's Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy & Biology) (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology)
Cambridge University Press, 4/5/2001
EAN 9780521650274, ISBN10: 0521650275
Hardcover, 346 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
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.