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Chapter 17 - Aristotle and Contemporary Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2021

Sophia M. Connell
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
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Summary

Aristotle’s biology and contemporary evolutionary biology appear to be fundamentally at odds. Any comparative biology seeks to explain the fit and diversity of organismal form, but Aristotelian and contemporary biology do so in very different, evidently incompatible, ways. In this chapter, I argue for a reconciliation between the two biologies. Recent advances in evolutionary thinking suggest that the form of population thinking pursued by twentieth-century evolutionary biology must be augmented by an understanding of the ways in which organisms as adaptive, purposive entities contribute to adaptive evolution. Moreover, the phenomenon of adaptation cannot adequately be understood unless we take into account the ways in which an organism’s “way of life” structures its experience of its conditions of existence. The active role that organisms play in evolution is nicely captured in Aristotle’s concept of bios – way of life.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Guide to Further Reading

Leroi, A. 2014. The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science (London: Bloomsbury).Google Scholar
Mayr, E. 1963. Animal Species and Evolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, E. 1988a. Toward a Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Sober, E. 1980. “Evolution, Population Thinking, and Essentialism,” Philosophy of Science 47(3): 350383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. 1984. The Nature of Selection (University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Laland, K., Uller, T., Feldman, M., Sterelny, L., Müller, G. B., Moczek, A., Jablonka, E. and Odling-Smee, J. 2011. “Cause and Effect in Biology Revisited: is Mayr’s Proximate-Ultimate Dichotomy Still Useful?Science 334(6062): 15121516.Google Scholar
Dupré, J. 1993. The Disorder of Things (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Austin, C. 2017. “Aristotelian Essentialism: Essence in the Age of Evolution,” Synthese 194: 25392556.Google Scholar
Devitt, M. 2008. “Resurrecting Biological Essentialism,” Philosophy of Science 75(3): 344382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devitt, M. 2018. “Individual Essentialism in Biology,” Biology and Philosophy 33(5–6): 39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, D. M. 2006. “Evolutionary Essentialism,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57: 425448.Google Scholar
Lennox, J. 2001b. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology) (Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Lennox, J. 2010a. “Bios and Explanatory Unity in Aristotle’s Biology,” in Charles, D. (ed.), Definition in Greek Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 329355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lennox, J. 2010b. “Βιος, Πραχεις and the Unity of Life,” in Föllinger, S., (ed.) Aristotele: Was ist ‘Leben’? Aristoteles’ Anschauungen zur Entstehungsweise und Funktion von Leben. Akten der Tagung vom 23–26 August 2006 in Bamberg (Stuttgart: Steiner), 239259.Google Scholar
Charles, D. 2000. Aristotle on Meaning and Essence (Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Marmodoro, A. 2013. “Aristotle’s Hylomorphism without Reconditioning,” Philosophical Inquiry, 37(1/2): 522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marmodoro, A. 2014a. Aristotle on Perceiving Objects (Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Marmodoro, A. 2014b. “Causation Without Glue: Aristotle on Causal Powers,” in Natali, C., Viano, C., and Zingano, M. (eds.), Les quatre causes d’Aristotle. Origins et interprétations (Louvain: Peeters), 221246.Google Scholar
Kosman, A. 2013. The Activity of Being. An Essay on Aristotle’s Ontology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Lewontin, R. 2003. The Triple Helix: Genes, Organism and Environments (Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Moreno, A. and Mossio, M. 2015. “Biological Autonomy: A Philosophical and Theoretical Enquiry,” Theoria 32(3): 392395.Google Scholar
Montévil, M. and Mossio, M. 2015. “Biological Organisation as Closure of Constraints,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 372: 179191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walsh, D. M. 2017. “Chance Causing on the Wing: Metaphysical Commitment or Methodological Artefact?” in Huneman, P. and Walsh, D. M. (eds.), Challenging the Modern Synthesis: Adaptation, Development, Inheritance (Oxford University Press), 239260.Google Scholar

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