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Chapter 2 - The Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle’s Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2021

By
Karel Thein
Edited by
Sophia M. Connell
Sophia M. Connell
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
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Summary

The chapter sketches a broad picture of some ideas, antecedent to Aristotle’s work, about the origin and development of living beings. Against the background of the new cosmological and metaphysical framework of Aristotle’s biological enterprise, it emphasizes what distinguishes Aristotle from the Presocratics and Plato: his rejection of a shared causal story that would account for both the origin of the universe and the birth of animals and plants. This shift helps to make intelligible Aristotle’s rejection of hylozoism and of the opposite view that life arises, mysteriously, from inanimate material ingredients. To demonstrate that Aristotle discusses the biological views of his predecessors without directly using them to build his own theory, the chapter first turns to Presocratic fragments, mostly of Anaximander and Empedocles, which connect biological matters and cosmogony. Second, the chapter takes a fresh look at how Plato reshapes this connection in his Timaeus, offering a new account of the nature of the universe and the nature of human beings. This account then enables us to evaluate, in the chapter’s final section, the changes that Aristotle brings to the study of living beings, including his rejection of the notion of the latter’s progressive formation.

Keywords

cosmogonyzoogonyembryology and cosmologyAnaximanderEmpedoclesPlato’s Timaeus
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Biology , pp. 30 - 45
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Guide to Further Reading

Zatta, C. 2017. Interconnectedness. The Living World of the Early Greek Philosophers (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag).Google Scholar
Lloyd, G. E. R. 1966. Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of Argumentation in Early Greek Thought (Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Henry, D. 2005. “Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy,” Phronesis 50: 1–42.Google Scholar
Mourelatos, A. P. D. 1987. “Quality, Structure, and Emergence in Later Presocratic Philosophy,” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 2: 127–194.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. 1987. “Commentary on Mourelatos,” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 2: 195–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Eijk, P. 2008. “The Role of Medicine in the Formation of Early Greek Thought,” in Curd, P. and Graham, D. W. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Oxford University Press), 385–412.Google Scholar
Johansen, T. K. 2004. Plato’s Natural Philosophy: A Study of the Timaeus–Critias (Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lennox, J. G. 1985. “Plato’s Unnatural Teleology,” in O’Meara, D. (ed.), Platonic Investigations (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press), 195–218. Reprinted in Lennox, J. G. 2001b. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology) (Cambridge University Press), 280–302.Google Scholar
Sedley, D. 2010. “Teleology, Aristotelian and Platonic,” in Lennox, J. G. and Bolton, R. (eds.), Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle: Essays in Honor of Allan Gotthelf (Cambridge University Press), 5–29.Google Scholar
Joubaud, C. 1991. Le corps humain dans la philosophie platonicienne. Étude à partir du Timée (Paris: Vrin).Google Scholar
Hall, T. S. 1965. “The Biology of the Timaeus in Historical Perspective,” Arion 4: 109–122.Google Scholar
Wilberding, J. 2015. “Plato’s Embryology,” Early Science and Medicine 20: 150–168.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carpenter, A. D. 2008. “Embodying Intelligence: Animals and Us in Plato’s Timaeus,” in Zovko, J. and Dillon, J. (eds.), Platonism and Forms of Intelligence (Sankt Augustin: Akademie Verlag), 39–58.Google Scholar
Carpenter, A. D. 2010. “Embodied Intelligent (?) Souls: Plants in Plato’s Timaeus,” Phronesis 55: 281–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitts, D. B. 1987. “Plato on Kinds of Animals,” Biology and Philosophy 2: 315–328, with reactions by Mayr, E. 1988b. “A Response to David Kitts,” Biology and Philosophy 3: 97–98, and Grene, M. A. 1989. “Defense of David Kitts,” Biology and Philosophy 4: 69–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gotthelf, A. 2012a. Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle’s Biology (Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lennox, J. G. 2001b. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science (Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar

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