Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology

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 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.

• These essays have been published in a wide variety of hard-to-find journals and books - now they are all in one easy, accessible format • Lennox is an acknowledged leader in his field • Besides Darwin, no other figure dominates the life sciences like Aristotle. Historians, philosophers of biology, and biologists now have a comprehensive guide to his contributions to their fields

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.