The fourteen contributions collected in this volume explore what is generally known as Aristotle’s biology. The historical period considered includes, besides Aristotle himself, his first successor at the head of his school, Theophrastus, and extends slightly beyond, up to the time of the authors of the Physical Problems. This period corresponds to the full vitality of the Peripatetic research program on animals and plants. This part of Peripatetic philosophy has been the subject of considerable scholarship and numerous publications since the pioneering work of David Balme, Allan Gotthelf, James Lennox, Anthony Preus, and Pierre Pellegrin, among others. In what follows, I would like first to highlight some of the distinctive features of this book.
These contributions address, to varying degrees, a number of common issues. Firstly, the claim that the science of living beings corresponds to a research program on animals and plants, with a highly elaborate theoretical framework, common to Aristotle and Theophrastus. This theoretical program, and in particular what it is indebted to the Aristotelian theory of science set out in the Posterior Analytics, has been the subject of much work.1 The following studies explore more specific aspects regarding the relationship between the science of the living and the science of the soul. Although Aristotle’s On the Soul is not mentioned in the summary-program of Meteorology I 1, which refers to the whole of the Aristotelian science of nature, it has a key and arguably foundational role to play in the science of life. This requires establishing that a science of the soul (or of life) is possible, despite a certain number of difficulties (especially as regards the unity of its subject matter) that Aristotle does not ignore, but also that there is a genuine connection between the program of the treatise On the Soul and that of the biological treatises. Furthermore, and from another point of view, the idea that there is a science of life common to the early Peripatos suggests that there is a continuity of method between the zoological treatises of Aristotle and the botanical works of Theophrastus, even if, admittedly, some adaptation of concepts and methods from animals to plants is inevitable and even required. These are, briefly, the issues discussed in the first four contributions by Sean Kelsey, Klaus Corcilius, Andrea Falcon, and Luciana Repici.
Next, the limits of this research program are an issue that emerges in many of the studies that follow. We could talk about limits in two different senses. Let us try to make this clear. First, Aristotle stands out because he rejected the univocity of life and claims that life can be said in many ways: “what is ensouled is distinguished from what is not ensouled by living. But living is spoken of in several ways. And should even one of these belong to something, we say that it is alive: reason [
A third common feature that unites these contributions is the attention paid to what might be the unity between perishable living things, from plants to animals (in the sea, on earth, and even on the moon) and the factors that differentiate them. Aristotelian teleology operates mainly at the level of living species, but it often also takes into account the environment of plants and animals; to a certain extent, Aristotle relates the diversity of kinds to that of environments. Several of the following contributions deal with the issue of the causal relation between living things and their surroundings: how can we bring the environment into Aristotle’s understanding of living things? One of the most remarkable results of Aristotelian science of animal nature is his theory of generation and, in particular his conception of the seed (sperma), which he developed in opposition to the Hippocratic pangenetic theory. But one very particular mode of reproduction, and extremely relevant to Aristotle and the Peripatos, is spontaneous generation, which can be explained by appealing to the environment and climate alone. On the same topic of the difference between the kinds of living beings, Aristotle does not refrain from considering the different ways in which living beings can achieve the same goal, such as reproducing or living. The figure of the scala naturae is therefore often used (albeit critically) in the articles that follow to capture a certain hierarchical order in the diversity of living beings. These are the issues discussed in the articles by Claire Louguet, Pierre-Marie Morel, Andrea Carbone, Robert Mayhew, Pierre Pellegrin, David Lefebvre, and Sophia M. Connell.
There is a final topic that is common to at least some of the contributions. All the issues we have just discussed affect how we should refer to this part of Aristotle’s natural science. James Lennox rightly said: “Aristotle essentially created both the science of biology and the philosophy of biology.”8 Of course, Aristotle never uses the word “biology,” but there is no doubt that a substantial part of Aristotelian natural science focuses on living things, and primarily on animals, so the use of the word “biology” may seem legitimate. However, as has been said: “The term ‘biology’ is not part of the Aristotelian vocabulary. Although this term is often used to designate the writings that Aristotle devoted to the study of animal life, it is far from obvious that it is well chosen.”9 The term biology is clearly anachronistic (it would be necessary to specify which modern biology we are referring to); but, as we have just seen, it is either too broad in relation to the scope of the Peripatetic research program (Aristotle and Theophrastus are concerned only with animals and plants and not with life in general) or too restricted in relation to the wide range of beings to which Aristotle attributes life (Aristotle does not deny life to eternal beings, even if these beings do not fall within the scope of the Aristotelian science of nature). For these reasons, which are addressed in the articles by Andrea Falcon, Diana Quarantotto, and Pierre Pellegrin, we have chosen to use the more inclusive phrase “science of life” as the title of this volume.
Let us now move on to a more detailed overview of the contents of the various articles. The overall structure of the book follows the topics we have already outlined: in the first part (“From the Study of the Soul to the Study of Perishable Life in Aristotle and Theophrastus”), four articles deal with the research program of this science of life, the foundational role of the treatise On the Soul, and the exact boundaries of this science of the living in Aristotle and Theophrastus. The following six contributions, in the second part (“Explaining Perishable Living Things”), focus on some achievements of Peripatetic life science, with special emphasis on animal generation and the role of the environment in our knowledge of living beings. The three articles that constitute the third part (“Life beyond Perishable Lives: Aristotle on the Unity of Life”) discuss what it means to attribute life to eternal beings and consider the unity of life. Finally, as a “Coda,” the last article compares the biology of Aristotle and that of Cuvier in the nineteenth century, and wonders whether Aristotle deserves to be called a biologist.
In chapter 1, “Life and Soul in Aristotle’s De Anima,” Sean Kelsey’s article is a good way of getting into the subject. Kelsey lists the objections to the existence of a science of the soul, which certainly seems to be Aristotle’s project in De Anima: Is the soul a single kind if the intellect is another kind of soul? If the soul is not of a “single species” but has a series of parts ordered according to the anterior and posterior, can it be the object of a science? If life is said in many senses, and if the same is true of the soul, the soul will not be a kind: Can it, once again, be the object of a science? Finally, can the soul have attributes if one of these attributes is movement, since the soul, as entelechy, cannot be moved by itself? As Kelsey says (p. 4), “the cumulative effect of these considerations is not to qualify or refine but simply to demolish the idea that there could be a science of
In chapter 2, “The Soul Itself in Aristotle’s Science of Living Things,” Klaus Corcilius sees the treatise On the Soul as the starting point and even the foundation of a science of living beings. He used the same sentence as S. Kelsey from De Anima I 1.402a7–11 as a basis for establishing, in De Anima (I 1, I 5), De Sensu and Parts of Animals I, the meaning of the difference between “the soul itself”, and the “per se accidents”. Corcilius demonstrates very precisely that these two expressions always designate the same things, even if Aristotle uses different verbal expressions. Per se accidents are not accidents of the soul itself, but accidents of living beings that have a soul, plants or animals. Corcilius makes a special case for the intellect, about which he considers various possibilities (p. 34) without reaching a final decision within the limits of the chapter. Corcilius shows that what Aristotle calls per se accidents of the soul exhaust all the explananda of the science of living beings. Thus, for Corcilius, the scientific methodology of the Second Analytics can be used to study the soul and its accidents. The soul plays the role of the essence of a domain that contains the living beings whose per se accidents science explains. The “soul itself” corresponds to the fundamental parts or powers of the soul. These parts form an explanatory structure that applies to the entire biological corpus. Corcilius insists on the ontological status of the “soul itself.” It is the common subject of the per se accidents for all living beings (animals and plants), and for this reason, this is the most general subject to the highest degree of abstraction. This distinction, which overlaps with the hylomorphic distinction, provides the basis for the division of the work between the De Anima, which discusses the “soul itself,” and the Parva Naturalia, devoted to the study of the actions and affections common to body and soul. The De Anima thus lays the foundations for an explanatory and unitary science of all perishable living things.
In chapter 3, “The Peripatetic Study of Perishable Life: Prospects and Limits,” Andrea Falcon’s contribution is centered on the break represented by Aristotle’s assertion (in De Anima II 2 quoted above) that there are different sorts of life, a position opposed to a univocal conception of life, supported in particular by Plato. Aristotle wants to study life in all its complexity, but he envisages two studies that are kept clearly separate from the outset: a study of plants and a study of animals, in this precise order (cf. Meteorology I 1). This program is not unique to Aristotle; it is a shared program of research by Aristotle and Theophrastus on perishable living beings; it defines a common and “impersonal” theoretical framework marked by a certain number of features. The fact that Aristotle conceived of two distinct studies shows that the object of this program is not a study of life itself. Aristotle and Theophrastus are interested in what is specific about animals and plants. Both adopted the same method: starting from the most central cases (blooded animals in the case of Aristotelian zoology) and moving forward by analogy. Analogy is an “explanatory tool” that works asymmetrically (always from the central case to peripheral cases, which is true of zoology and the study of plants, but also of the relationship between these two parts of the science of living beings); it never erases the specificity of the objects. Analogy is what allows us to speak of a study of perishable life in Aristotle and Theophrastus, but neither of them engaged in a study of what is common to animals and plants. As Falcon shows with a focus on the treatise On Longevity and Shortness of life, what is common to plants and animals is studied in the case of animals. Such is the limit of this Peripatetic study of perishable life: Aristotle and Theophrastus have surprisingly little to say about them qua perishable living beings.
In chapter 4, “The Minimal Requisites of Life in Aristotle and Theophrastus,” Luciana Repici agrees that the early Peripatos had a shared research agenda. Against recent views, she also emphasizes the theoretical and conceptual continuity between Aristotle’s study of animals and Theophrastus’ study of plants. Repici focuses on the relationship between Aristotle and Theophrastus to establish the existence of a strong continuity between them on the conception of life and the study of living beings. Repici first follows the Aristotelian analysis of life, working from the bottom up: the primary qualities necessary for the development of life, the different material and instrumental parts, the complexification of functions and activities common to the soul and body, and finally, the role of the internal principle, the soul. Repici stops at the nutritive and reproductive soul, a fundamental discovery of Aristotle’s, which presides over the minimal organization of life, and she also insists on the role of fire in the nutritive life. The study of the operations of the nutritive soul is not completed in the De anima and continues in the Parva Naturalia, Aristotle providing the same twofold explanation, based on mechanical and hypothetical necessity. At this point, Repici asks the main question: does the fact that Theophrastus, while devoting his entire work to plants characterized by the nutritive soul alone, makes only one mention of the “threptikon” (De Causis Plantarum I 12.5.1), means the end of the teleological approach and a return to a mechanistic explanation? Repici shows that it does not. Theophrastus adapts Aristotelian teleology to plants. He breaks new ground in his description of plants’ own vitality. However, Repici insists that plants and animals are studied by analogy. Theophrastus does not abandon teleology but adapts it to the world of plants, which differs in many ways from the animal world; this helps us to understand why, in his Metaphysics, Theophrastus sought to define precisely the limits of teleology.
In the second part of the book, in chapter 5, “Perittôma vs. Suntêgma: Was Aristotle Unfair in Equating Pangenesis with the ‘Seed as Suntêgma’ Theory?”, Claire Louguet’s article takes us into Aristotle’s zoological studies, and in particular into his theory of generation in the treatise De Generatione Animalium. More specifically, her article focuses on the Aristotelian theory of spermatogenesis, a fundamental aspect of his embryology. The article is a close study of Aristotle’s strategy against the so-called pangenetic theory adopted in the Hippocratic treatises. Louguet discusses in great detail chapters 17 to 19 of GA I. She aims to show that Aristotle’s whole strategy is not only to refute the pangenetic theory, but above all to make it impossible to confuse his own theory with the pangenetic one. According to the pangenetic theory, the seed comes from all the parts of the bodies of both parents and originates more precisely from the humours of each body. Aristotle thinks that the male seed contains all the movements that come from all the parts of the male and that female menses have potentially all the parts of the male and female animals. Aristotle also wanted to emphasize that generation is a one-way process (as opposed to the mutual generation of elements). Louguet diverges, in particular, from the famous article by Andrew Coles (Coles 1995). She wants to show that Aristotle is not “unfair” in identifying the seed according to the pangenetic theory with the colliquation (the suntêgma), i.e., something that “results from the dissolution of what the nutriment has generated.” Aristotle has simply pointed out an absurd conclusion in the conflicting Hippocratic positions. A clear understanding of the relationships between Hippocratic and Aristotelian theory of generation has a key role to play in our knowledge of the distinctive agenda of Aristotelian natural science.
In chapter 6, “How Does a Living Animal Come to Be from Semen? The Puzzles of Aristotle’s Generation of Animals II 1–3,” Sophia M. Connell’s article focuses on embryogenesis, and more specifically on the most challenging aporia for Aristotle discussed in Generation of Animals II 1. According to Aristotle, the action of the seed is immaterial; it consists only in movement(s); the father is the Prime Mover; how then can the father, who is an external mover, act on the female’s menses, given the Aristotelian theory of motion holds that motion requires direct contact between the motor and the object being moved? After identifying the various difficulties Aristotle faces and distinguishing the different stages in the generation of a new animal, Connell explores in detail the aporia of Generation of Animals II 1 and the answer provided through a comparison with an automaton. Connell carefully examines the similarities and dissimilarities between the model and natural generation. In particular, she raises the question of the exact kind of machine to which Aristotle may be referring. She identifies three meanings of the analogy (p. 138): “(a) a small event can have greater effects; (b) there can be a transfer of power or energy from one part of a system to another; (c) continual direct contact is not required for a sequence of further events that, once complete, comprise the ends brought about by the agent.” Connell shows how each of these points account for the use of the automaton analogy in an explanation that is both wholly mechanical and teleological. She enhances our understanding of this analogy by insisting that it is not just the action of the male’s seed that must be taken into account. The difference with mechanical or artificial change is that, in the case of animal generation, nature acts not only on but “with the matter” provided by the female. This leads Connell to emphasize the differences between automaton and natural generation rather than the similarities.
The next three contributions deal with the environment (
In chapter 8, “Living and Well-living in Aristotle’s Zoology,” Andrea Libero Carbone focuses on another distinctive feature of Aristotle’s science of animals: the difference between living and “well-living.” Plants just live; through locomotion and sensation, by the number of their organs and the variety of their forms (their polymorphism), animals have the capacity to “live well.” Using a text from Parts of Animals II 10, Carbone explores the meaning of this expression in the zoological contexts and shows how it leads Aristotle to make use in his zoology of a dialectical argument elaborated in Topics III (“what is more worthy of choice”). Living well is not restricted to human beings or even to political animals alone; Aristotle relates it to a graduated scale of anatomical and morphological complexity ranging from plants to beings capable of living well; a certain degree of complexity is necessary to live well, but it is not possible to say that one species lives better than another. Using texts from De Sensu and De Anima, Carbone investigates the teleological relationship between the degree of anatomical and functional complexity, living and living well. The necessity of certain parts or functions depends on the level of generality (in relation to a kind or species), so that the “double teleology” (the necessary and the good) is not a rigid difference but varies according to the level of generality adopted. Carbone therefore distinguishes two types of teleological inference. The first is expendable found in Parts of Animals I 1, and is formulated as follows: “if a living being is an animal, then it possesses touch and taste by necessity”; but this does not apply to the other senses, which are said to be “for the sake of the good.” Carbone therefore suggests that in this case Aristotle is using an argument that belongs in the “topos” of the preferable in the Topics.
In chapter 9, “Simple Solutions to Complex Problems: Spontaneous Generation in [Aristotle], Problemata physica X,” Robert Mayhew compares Aristotle’s explanation of spontaneous generation in Generation of Animals III.11 to the approach adopted in Problemata X.13 and X.65. Mayhew’s contribution affords insight into the development of Aristotelian science of life during the Hellenistic period, the period of the “disappearance of Aristotle’s biology,” to use James Lennox’s expression.10 Mayhew begins by recalling the Peripatetic context: the main features of spontaneous generation in Aristotle, in the case of animals, and Theophrastus, in the case of plants. Mayhew accepts David Balme’s thesis that a more materialist approach emerges in Aristotle’s explanation of spontaneous generation. Mayhew then proposes a precise philosophical and philological reading of these two Problems, comparing their construction with that of others. Problem X.13 involves an interesting reference by its author to a “primal generation” of animals. The author seems to distance himself from Aristotle on the subject of animals, for which he accepts spontaneous generation. Problem X.65, on the other hand, is concerned with cases of double generation under certain conditions, in the case of certain small animals: both by spontaneous generation and “from each other.” Mayhew considers that these two problems correspond to a case where questions and answers occur in the context of open and tentative research. Aristotle’s explanation was not taken as the final word on this topic within the Peripatos. Alternative solutions were probably contemplated by the author(s) of these two Problemata, which suggests that the “disappearance” was not total.
In chapter 10, “Aristotle, Generation of Animals III 11; In Search of a Place for the Fourth Kind of Living Being,” David Lefebvre focuses on the first section of GA III 11, mainly devoted to the explanation of spontaneous generation. In this section, Aristotle draws an analogy between plants and testacea, then relates each of the three kinds of living being to an element (water, earth, air), and finally explains that, as for the fourth kind, that which relates to fire, it is on the moon that we must look for. This passage therefore links the four kinds of living beings with the four elements. Lefebvre first presents this passage in a wider context, which relates to Aristotle’s explanation of the diversity of species. He then comments in detail on this section, which gives a fundamental role to the relationship between living beings and their environment in the broadest sense: the differences between living beings depend on the “more or less” differences in the material environment (earth, water, air). He also defends the claim that these realities of fire are indeed beings that live on the visible face of the moon, and not the celestial bodies themselves. Finally, he proposes an interpretation of this passage: Aristotle is still operating in a Platonic context, inherited from the Timaeus, of quadripartition of the kinds of living beings (one kind per element), which he applies in GA III 11 to a cosmology with five elements. The claim that there are beings made of fire living on the moon is first and foremost the result of adapting the Platonic heritage to a new cosmology. Elsewhere, Aristotle keeps the four kinds, but refers each to its “propre place” within nature.
In the third part of the book, in chapter 11, “Perishable and Imperishable Lives: Aristotle’s Analogy with the Heavenly Element in GA II 3.736b29–737a5,” Diana Quarantotto deals with the much-debated text from Generation of Animals II 3 (736b29–737a5) in which Aristotle draws an analogy between the hot nature in the seed and the “first body” in the stars. Given the scarcity of analogies between perishable and eternal living beings, this analogy is of great importance to know whether and to what extent Aristotle has a unified theory of living beings. Quarantotto begins her contribution with a detailed study of the text to clarify what the analogy refers to: hot pneuma is to the world of sublunary living beings what the astral element is to celestial living beings. What characterizes the astral element is that it has no opposites, which explains why the life of celestial bodies is an eternal circular movement. By their eternal generation, living beings imitate the activity of celestial bodies; in this case, the generation preserves the specific life, i.e., the pneuma or natural heat. Quarantotto suggests here that what brings the pneuma closer to the astral element is that the pneuma has no opposites and is not an opposite, but is itself a meson between opposites that is set up by vital activity and serves as an instrument for this activity. The pneuma realizes in a complex way (by equalizing opposites) what the astral element realizes in a simple way (by the absence of opposites). Then, Quarantotto establishes the existence of a hierarchy of the divine in Aristotle; the intellect is characterized by its eternal activity, but there are degrees of divinity within the bodies insofar as they perform a more or less eternal activity. Eternal activity is a common feature of all forms of life, plants, animals, human beings, celestial bodies and the intellect. The idea suggested here is that vital activities correspond to different ways of being eternal, or, conversely, that if an activity is eternal, it is a kind of life.
In chapter 12, “ ‘We Think of the Stars as Mere Bodies’: Aristotle’s Epistemological Confrontation with the Academy on Heavenly Bodies,” Mai-Lan Boureau discusses Aristotle’s argument in De Caelo II 12 (292a18–21) that celestial bodies have a share in action and life. This claim has very often been understood as a regression or the vestige of a Platonic conception, alien to Aristotelian naturalism; it also raises difficulties with regard to the conception of life in De Anima, which generally leads commentators to think that the life of celestial bodies is a mere analogy. Boureau makes sense of this phrase in the context of De Caelo II 12 and, more broadly, of the book II. She first reconstructs Aristotle’s complex polemical strategy in II 12, showing that Aristotle’s target in this passage is Xenocrates and his theory of the soul. More generally, the polemic against Plato in De Caelo II 1 must be taken into account. Aristotle rejects the idea that celestial bodies are moved by a soul, as this would be tantamount to conceiving of their motion as constrained. Aristotle is not criticizing the animation of the stars, but a certain conception of this animation, the one shared by Plato and Xenocrates, according to which this relationship would be constrained. De Caelo II 12 thus proposes the correct view: the body and soul of the celestial body are united by the pursuit of one and the same good, and each of the celestial bodies reaches it in its own way. The attribution of a praxis and a life of its own to each celestial body makes it to account for apparent inconsistencies in the movements of celestial bodies. Aristotle does not want to give an unequivocal definition of life, but considers that a common characteristic of all living beings is the pursuit of a specific good (De Caelo II 12.292b1–10). Boureau then draws conclusions from her previous analysis regarding the relationships between De Caelo and De philosophia.
Aristotle ascribes life also to the immaterial substance of Metaphysics
In chapter 14, “Can Aristotle Be Considered a Biologist?”, in a conclusive contribution that draws on both ancient philosophy and the history of science, Pierre Pellegrin explores the question of whether Aristotle is a biologist. “Biology” is used precisely in the meaning Foucault gave to this word in The Order of Things to designate this science in the early nineteenth century, namely the biology of Georges Cuvier. In this sense, biology conceives of living beings as a hierarchical set of functions and is characterized by the use of two laws: the “Law of Organic Correlation” and the “Law of Subordination of Characters.” It is also in a position to build an in-depth classification of animals. In this sense, biology is also consistent with vitalism (for Cuvier, life is a fundamental aspect of reality). From this point of view, according to Pellegrin, Aristotle is a precursor of Cuvier, or what Pellegrin calls a “Cuvier in the bud.” However, Aristotle is not a biologist for at least three reasons: (i) Biologists are in favour of a scala naturae, which Aristotle is not, according to Pellegrin (he is not a “continuist” in his conception of the relationship between the different groups of living beings and he does not think that the world is a complete hierarchized whole, as Pellegrin shows from a reading of Generation of Animals III 11. (ii) For him, the species remains the strategic level of teleological explanation. (iii) Finally, Aristotelian vitalism is not that of Cuvier. For Aristotle, vitalism proceeds from top to bottom; the more complex levels make the simpler ones intelligible. So, Aristotle was not a biologist in the sense of Cuvier, even if we can see a resemblance between them which is all the more apparent if we consider that Aristotle had no posterity in Antiquity.
This volume is not a guidebook that seeks to provide a uniform and systematic picture of the Peripatetic science of life. The coherence of this book comes not from the solutions provided, but from the topics under discussion, the unity and diversity of the meanings of life, and its science in Aristotle and the Peripatos. It hopes to provide a better understanding of these issues in the context of Peripatetic natural philosophy and, more broadly, in that of the history of life sciences.
Bibliography
Caston, V. 2020. “Aristote et l’unité de la psychologie. Comment diviser l’âme?” 199–229 in Graziani and Pellegrin eds.
Cerami, C. and A. Falcon. 2014. “Continuity and Discontinuity in the Greek and Arabic Reception of Aristotle’s Study of Animals.” Antiquorum Philosophia, 8: 35–56.
Falcon, A. 2024. The Architecture of the Science of Living Beings. Aristotle and Theophrastus on Animals and Plants. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gotthelf, A. and J.G. Lennox eds. 1987. Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Graziani, F. and P. Pellegrin. eds. 2020. L’héritage d’Aristote aujourd’hui. Science, nature et société. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.
King, R.A.H. ed. 2006 Common to Body and Soul. Philosophical Approaches to Explaining Living Behaviour in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter.
Lennox, J.G. 2001. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology. Studies in the Origins of Life Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lennox, J.G. 2001. “The Disappearance of Aristotle’s Biology: A Hellenistic Mystery.” 110–125 in Lennox 2001 (First publication 1994, Apeiron 27: 7–24).
O’Brien, D. “Life Beyond the Stars: Aristotle, Plato and Empedocles (De Caelo 1.9 279a11–22).” 49–102 in King ed. 2006.
Shields, Ch. 1999. Order in Multiplicity. Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shields, Ch. 2016. Aristotle.De Anima. Translated with Introduction and Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
See Gotthelf et Lennox 1987, Part II and Lennox 2001, with the short outline, 112–113.
DA II 2.413a21–25 trans. Shields 2016. See also Aristotle, Top. VI 10.148a26–31 against the definition of life provided by Dionysius of Chalcedon.
Aristotle confines the use of the term
DC II 12.292a18–21.
To borrow the title of Denis O’Brien’s article (2006) on De Caelo I 9.279a11–22.
Metaph.
See Shields 1999, 176–193, who defends the idea of a “core-dependent homonymy” between the different meanings of life; and contra Caston 2020, 213–215 fn. 43.
Lennox 2001, xx. Lennox specifies (p. xix) that he means here by “biology” “Aristotle’s delineation of a special branch of a theoretical knowledge devoted to the systematic investigation of animals” (our emphasis).
Cerami and Falcon 2014, 35. The authors write: “The term ‘biology’ is not part of the Aristotelian vocabulary. Although this term is often used to refer to the writings that Aristotle devoted to studying animal life, it is far from obvious that it is well-chosen. At the outset of the Meteorology, where a precise outline of the organization and structure of the explanatory project that is known as Aristotle’s natural philosophy (or Aristotle’s natural science) is offered, no study of life or living beings is mentioned; rather, separate studies of animals and plants are announced.” See chapter 6 in Falcon 2024.
Lennox, 2001.