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Chapter 9 - Aristotle on Animal Generation and Hereditary Resemblance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2021

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

This chapter provides an overview of the theories of generation and hereditary resemblance found in Aristotle’s work On the Generation of Animals. This treatise completes the project of explaining the development of the perfected living being, which the epigenetic process of embryological development aims for. Aristotle’s explanation of how a new animal comes into being fits to his four-causal scheme, by adding in the more specific principles, male and female. The opponent, thinks Aristotle, is wrong to think that the generative contributions of the parents (seed, sperma) derive from all parts of the body. Instead, what male and female contribute is the most refined nourishment that their bodies produce, which is ready to become all the parts of the body. Male and female roles are then differentiated: the female provides this blood-derived product to serve as that material body (material cause) while the male’s seed is further refined so as to initiate and direct that development as the efficient cause. Aristotle also explains how it is that particular animals end up as male or female and come to resemble their blood relatives. The chapter ends by reflecting on Aristotle’s sexism in his theory of generation.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Guide to Further Reading

Peck, A. 1942. Aristotle: Generation of Animals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Reeve, C. D. C. 2019. Aristotle Generation of Animals and History of Animals I, Parts of Animals I, translation with introduction and notes (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett).Google Scholar
Drossaart Lulofs, H. J. 1965a. De Generatione Animalium (Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Lefebvre, D. 2014. Aristote, La Génération des Animaux, in Pellegrin, P. (ed.), Aristote, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Flammarion), 15761730.Google Scholar
Balme, D. 1972/1992. Aristotle’s De Partibus Animalium I and De Generatione Animalium I: (with passages from 2.1–3) Translated with Notes. With a Report on Recent Work and an Additional Bibliography (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Connell, S. 2016. Aristotle on Female Animals: A Study of the Generation of Animals (Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Connell, S. 2020. “Nutritive and Sentient Soul in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals II.5,” Phronesis 65(4): 324354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, D. 2006a. “Understanding Aristotle’s Reproductive Hylomorphism,” Apeiron 39: 257288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, D. 2019. Matter, Form and Moving Causes: Aristotle’s Hylomorphic Theory of Substantial Generation (Cambridge University Press), chapters 5–6.Google Scholar
Kosman, A. 2010. “Male and female in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals,” in Lennox, J. G. and Bolton, R. (eds.), Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle (Cambridge University Press), 147167.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, D. 2016. “Le sperma: forme, matiere ou les deux? Aristote critique de la double sémence,” Philosophie Antique 16: 3162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morsink, J. 1982. Aristotle on the Generation of Animals: A Philosophical Study (Washington, DC: University of America Press).Google Scholar
Preus, A. 1970. “Science and Philosophy in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals,” Journal of the History of Biology 3(1): 152.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Falcon, A. and Lefebvre, D. (eds.) 2018. Aristotle’s Generation of Animals: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
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Balme, D. 1987d. “Aristotle’s Biology was Not Essentialist,” in Gotthelf, A. and Lennox, J. G., (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology (Cambridge University Press), 291312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connell, S. 2016. Aristotle on Female Animals: A Study of the Generation of Animals (Cambridge University Press), chapter 9.Google Scholar
Cooper, J. 1988a. “Metaphysics in Aristotle’s Embryology,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 34: 1431.Google Scholar
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Connell, S. 2016. Aristotle on Female Animals: A Study of the Generation of Animals (Cambridge University Press), chapter 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, K. 1996. “Sexual Inequality in Aristotle’s Theories of Reproduction and Inheritance,” in Ward, J. K. (ed.), Feminism and Ancient Philosophy (Abingdon: Routledge), 5167.Google Scholar
Föllinger, S. 1996. Differenz und Gleichheit: Das Geschlechterverhältnis in der Sicht griechischer Philosophen des 4. bis 1. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Hermes Einzelschriften 74 (Stuttgart: Steiner).Google Scholar
Henry, D. 2007. “How Sexist Is Aristotle’s Developmental Biology?Phronesis 52: 251269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, G. E. R. 1983b. “Aristotle on the Difference Between the Sexes,” in Lloyd, G. E. R., Science, Folklore and Ideology (Cambridge University Press), 94105.Google Scholar
Mayhew, R. 2004. The Female in Aristotle’s Biology: Reason and Rationalization (University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
McGowan Tress, D. 1992. “The Metaphysical Science of Aristotle’s GA and His Feminist Critics,” Review of Metaphysics 46: 307341.Google Scholar
Nielsen, K. M. 2008. “The Private Parts of Animals: Aristotle on the Teleology of Sexual Difference,” Phronesis 53: 373405.Google Scholar

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