Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology
- OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Biology and Theology in Aristotle’s Theoretical and Practical Sciences
- Chapter 2 The Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 3 Aristotle’s Biology and Early Medicine
- Chapter 4 Empiricism and Hearsay in Aristotle’s Zoological Collection of Facts
- Chapter 5 Parts of Animals Book 1 on Methods of Inquiry
- Chapter 6 Teleological Perspectives in Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 7 Aristotle’s Biological Metaphysics
- Chapter 8 Life-Cycles and the Actions of Nutritive Soul in Aristotle
- Chapter 9 Aristotle on Animal Generation and Hereditary Resemblance
- Chapter 10 The Science of Perception in Aristotle
- Chapter 11 Aristotle’s Theory of Animal Agency and the Problem of Self-Motion
- Chapter 12 Animal Cognition in Aristotle
- Chapter 13 Elements of Biology in Aristotle’s Political Science
- Chapter 14 The Early Reception of Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 15 The Reception of Aristotle’s Biology in Late Antiquity and Beyond
- Chapter 16 Aristotelian Teleology and Philosophy of Biology in the Darwinian Era
- Chapter 17 Aristotle and Contemporary Biology
- Afterword: Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology – Its Coming-to-Be and Its Being
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index Locorum
- OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS
- References
Chapter 6 - Teleological Perspectives in Aristotle’s Biology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2021
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology
- OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Biology and Theology in Aristotle’s Theoretical and Practical Sciences
- Chapter 2 The Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 3 Aristotle’s Biology and Early Medicine
- Chapter 4 Empiricism and Hearsay in Aristotle’s Zoological Collection of Facts
- Chapter 5 Parts of Animals Book 1 on Methods of Inquiry
- Chapter 6 Teleological Perspectives in Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 7 Aristotle’s Biological Metaphysics
- Chapter 8 Life-Cycles and the Actions of Nutritive Soul in Aristotle
- Chapter 9 Aristotle on Animal Generation and Hereditary Resemblance
- Chapter 10 The Science of Perception in Aristotle
- Chapter 11 Aristotle’s Theory of Animal Agency and the Problem of Self-Motion
- Chapter 12 Animal Cognition in Aristotle
- Chapter 13 Elements of Biology in Aristotle’s Political Science
- Chapter 14 The Early Reception of Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 15 The Reception of Aristotle’s Biology in Late Antiquity and Beyond
- Chapter 16 Aristotelian Teleology and Philosophy of Biology in the Darwinian Era
- Chapter 17 Aristotle and Contemporary Biology
- Afterword: Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology – Its Coming-to-Be and Its Being
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index Locorum
- OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS
- References
Summary
The activities undergone by living things are paradigmatically end-directed, and so this chapter examines Aristotle’s invocation of teleological notions (as well as their contrast with non-teleological notions) in his scientific investigation of life. In particular, the chapter looks at how Aristotle explains why various processes occur, why some kinds of organisms have (or lack) certain parts or features, and why those parts or features vary in their sizes and shapes. Aristotle’s biological explanations are complex and rich in detail, thus providing valuable resources for making headway into some of the interpretive challenges facing our understanding of his distinctive form of natural teleology – one that countenances purposes in the absence of intentions and volitions, and one that finds the occurrence of necessity compatible with goal-directedness.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Biology , pp. 97 - 113Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Guide to Further Reading
Gotthelf, A. 1997b. “Understanding Aristotle’s Teleology,” in Hassing, R. (ed.), Final Causality in Nature and Human Affairs (Washington DC: Catholic University Press), 71–82. A revised, updated, and expanded version of this article is reprinted in Gotthelf, A. 2012a. Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle’s Biology (Oxford University Press), 67–89.Google Scholar
Tuozzo, T. 2014. “Aristotle and the Discovery of Efficient Causation,” in Schmaltz, T. (ed.), Efficient Causation: The History of a Concept (Oxford University Press), 23–47.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, P. and Sober, E. 2017. “Aristotle on ‘Nature Does Nothing in Vain’,” in HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 7(2): 246–271, doi.org/10.1086/693422.Google Scholar
Henry, D. 2013. “Optimality Reasoning in Aristotle’s Natural Teleology,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 55: 225–263.Google Scholar
Lennox, J. G. 1997a. “Nature Does Nothing in Vain …, ” in Kullman, W., Günther, H.-C., and Rengakos, A. (eds.), Beiträge zur Antiken Philosophie. Festschrift für Wolfgang Kullmann, herausgegeben von Hans-Christian Günther und Antonios Rengakos (mit einer Einleitung von Ernst Vogt) (Stuttgart: F. Steiner), 199–214. 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), 205–223.Google Scholar
Leunissen, M. 2010. Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle’s Science of Nature (Cambridge University Press), chapter 4.2. (Chapter 4 of Leunissen’s book also contains a detailed survey of the various patterns of teleological explanation found in Aristotle’s biology.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles, D. 1988. “Aristotle on Hypothetical Necessity and Irreducibility,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 69: 1–53. Reprinted in Irwin, T. (ed.) 1995. Classical Philosophy. Collected Papers (Abingdon: Routledge), 27–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, J. 1987. “Hypothetical Necessity and Natural Teleology,” in Gotthelf, A. and Lennox, J. G. (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology (Cambridge University Press), 243–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedley, D. 1991. “Is Aristotle’s Teleology Anthropocentric?” Phronesis 36: 179–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedley, D. 2000. “Metaphysics Lambda 10,” in Charles, D. and Frede, M. (eds.), Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda: The Proceedings of the Fourteenth Symposium Aristotelicum (Oxford University Press), 326–350.Google Scholar
Sedley, D. 2010. “Teleology, Aristotelian and Platonic,” in Bolton, R. and Lennox, J. G. (eds.), Being, Nature, and Life. Essays in Honor of Allan Gotthelf (Cambridge University Press), 5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles, D. 2012. “Teleological Causation,” in Shields, C. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle (Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Henry, D. 2015. “Aristotle on the Cosmological Significance of Animal Generation,” in Ebrey, D. (ed.), Theory and Practice in Aristotle’s Natural Science (Cambridge University Press), 100–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judson, L. 2005. “Aristotelian Teleology,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29: 341–365.Google Scholar
Wardy, R. 1993. “Aristotelian Rainfall or the Lore of Averages,” Phronesis 38: 18–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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