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Epistemology of living organisms in Aristotle’s philosophy

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Summary

For Aristotle, living entities are exemplars of substance being. This means that they show a unity of matter and form on the one hand and of potency and act on the other, in contrast to the duality shown in these respects by accidental beings, exemplified by artefacts. An animal, although composed of the same elements (arche) considered by presocratic philosophers, is defined as an individual unity, generated and maintained by an organisation which relates its parts in a hierarchical and functional way. Crucial to his understanding of the living is the hierarchy in which each part is defined by fitness to a function, as an instrument (organon), performing within the whole. The whole being is also an instrument (an organism) for a specific kind of life, which actualises an internal and specific principle (psuche).

Both the regularity of appearance of each organism and its fitness to a specific function justify the introduction, in addition to the study of necessary causes, of an additional way of analysis in terms of hypothetical necessities, or necessary conditions for a goal to be attained. Fitness to a function and regularity of appearance make necessary the analysis not just of the elementary components, but of another principle (eidos, form) which defines a structure directed to a goal. While for accidental beings matter can survive their destruction, the corruption (pthora) of living entities causes the disruption of the entire unity of matter and form. Living entities, both as matter and form, show therefore a temporal limitation in being generated and corrupted, although they persist as specific forms since they generate offspring which regularly share their differential characteristics defined in their form.

After reviewing recent interpretations of Aristotle’s biological writings, I will suggest the usefulness of this conceptual framework to analyse some problems approached by current developmental biology.

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Abbreviations

De An:

De Anima

GA:

Generation of Animals

GC:

Generation and Corruption

HA:

Historia Animalium

Met:

Metaphysics

PA:

Parts of Animals

Ph:

Physics

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  1. Instituto de Neurociencias UMH/CSIC, Campus de San Juan, 03550, Alicante, Spain

    Fernando Moya

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  1. Fernando Moya
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Correspondence to Fernando Moya.

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Moya, F. Epistemology of living organisms in Aristotle’s philosophy. Theory Biosci. 119, 318–333 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-000-0020-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-000-0020-6

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