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Putting Philosophy of Science to the Test: the Case or Aristotle's Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

James G. Lennox
James G. Lennox*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Extract

Aristotle's De Partibus Animalium (PA) is, if there ever was one, a classic. It consists, at the broadest level, of four books. The first is devoted to articulating (I'm quoting its introduction) “…standards, by reference to which one will judge the manner of the demonstrations <of natural inquiry>, apart from the question of how the truth has it, whether thus or otherwise.” (639al2-15). Books II-IV, on the other hand, are introduced as attempts to provide causal explanations for the facts regarding the parts that belong to the various kinds of animals, facts systematically organized in the Historia Animalium. (646a8-12). This means that Aristotle's De Partibus consists of an introductory book on the philosophy of biological science, and three books of biological science.

Such an arrangement provides the student of this great work an opportunity to explore one of the perennial issues in the history and philosophy of science: the connection between a scientist's theory of science, and his actual scientific practice.

Type
Part VIII. Science and Philosophy in the Classic Texts
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 238 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

It is a pleasure to thank the Division of Research Programs of the National Endowment for the Humanities for their support during work on the translation and commentary of Aristotle's De Partibus Animalium (to be published by Oxford University Press). It was Professor Finocchiaro's wonderful idea to invite Daniel Jones of that Division, to chair the Symposium in which this paper was presented, and I would like to thank him for agreeing to take part. Finally, I would like to thank Maurice Finocchiaro for organizing the Symposium, and Ernan McMullin for his perceptive comments on my paper.

References

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Gotthelf, A. (1987), “First Principles in Aristotle's Parts of Animals”’ in Gotthelf and Lennox eds. 1987, 167-198.Google Scholar
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Lennox, J. G. (1987), “Divide and Explain: the Posterior Analytics in Practice” in Gotthelf and Lennox eds. 1987, 90-119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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