Minerals, Morals, and the Hidden Purpose of Nature

Abstract

Argument

Aristotle's colleague Theophrastus wrote a number of short works on natural historical subjects. They have proved something of a challenge to modern critics. In his Metaphysics, Theophrastus had warned of the dangers in expecting consistent evidence of purpose-directed activity throughout all levels of the natural world. Taken too far, he argued, this expectation carries with it a risk of destroying the prestige of explanation altogether. In the short works – such as On Stones – he appears to be taking his own warning very seriously. So much so that there is little obvious sign to the modern eye of any philosophically inspired taxonomical principle behind the organization of the material presented. Yet taxonomy (of a sort) there is. If Plato had advocated a hard-line teleology in which all natural phenomena worthy of mention and study could be understood in terms of their emulation of the Forms, both Aristotle and Theophrastus allowed several species of teleological impulse. One type drives an organism to be the best it possibly can be, but another drives it to serve the interests of man in the best way it can. The two impulses occasionally collide, but at the “lower” levels of creation where purpose-directed activity pure and simple is often less than evident, we can often find organisms and even inanimate matter serving the interest of human users. This species of anthropocentric teleology provides a justification – and a potential taxonomical framework – for much of Theophrastus' investigation into the more intractable reaches of the natural world, and offers a glimpse of the developing mind-set of the Lyceum in the generations after Aristotle.