Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle's Biology

459 Pages·2012·3.46 MB·English

by  Allan Gotthelf

Teleology, First Principles, and
fi ’
Scienti c Method in Aristotle s Biology
OXFORD ARISTOTLE STUDIES
GeneralEditors
JuliaAnnasandLindsayJudson
PUBLISHEDINTHESERIES
Teleology,FirstPrinciples,andScientific
MethodinAristotle’sBiology
AllanGotthelf
PriorityinAristotle’sMetaphysics
MichailPeramatzis
DoingandBeing
AnInterpretationofAristotle’sMetaphysicsTheta
JonathanBeere
Space,Time,Matter,andForm
EssaysonAristotle’sPhysics
DavidBostock
AristotleonMeaningandEssence
DavidCharles
TimeforAristotle
UrsulaCoope
AristotleonTeleology
MonteRansomeJohnson
OnLocation
Aristotle’sConceptsofPlace
BenjaminMorison
OrderinMultiplicity
HomonymyinthePhilosophyofAristotle
ChristopherShields
Aristotle’sTheoryofSubstance
TheCategoriesandMetaphysicsZeta
MichaelV.Wedin
Aristotle’sDeInterpretatione
ContradictionandDialectic
C.W.A.Whitaker
Teleology,
First Principles, and
fi
Scienti c Method
’
in Aristotle s Biology
Allan Gotthelf
1
3
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To the memory of Ayn Rand and David Balme
For Aristotle, life is not an inexplicable, supernatural mystery, but a fact of
nature.Andconsciousnessisanaturalattributeofcertainlivingentities,their
naturalpower,theirspecificmodeofaction—notanunaccountableelementin
amechanisticuniverse,tobeexplainedawaysomehowintermsofinanimate
matter,noramysticmiracleincompatiblewithphysicalreality,tobeattributed
tosomeoccultsourceinanotherdimension.ForAristotle,‘living’and‘know-
ing’arefactsofreality;man’smindisneitherunnaturalnorsupernatural,but
natural—and this is the root of Aristotle’s greatness, of the immeasurable
distancethatseparateshimfromotherthinkers.
Life—anditshighestform,man’slife—isthecentralfactinAristotle’sview
of reality. The best way to describe it is to say that Aristotle’s philosophy is
‘biocentric’.
This is the source of Aristotle’s intense concern with the study of living
entities, the source of the enormously ‘pro-life’ attitude that dominates his
thinking.
AynRand,‘ReviewofRandall’sAristotle’(1963)
Butteleologyneverthelessistheprimarysubjectof[thePartsofAnimals],and
the other [biological] treatises likewise have primarily theoretical purposes.
Theyarenotjustempiricalstudiesinwhichsomephilosophicalconceptsare
puttouse.Wegolessfarwrongifweregardthemasstudiesoftheseconcepts
madethroughempiricaldata.
Thissuggeststhepossibilitythatwemightgainlightupontheseconcepts—
suchassubstance,form,species,essence,logos—byexaminingtheirreference
inbiology,togetherwiththeargumentsaroundthem.
D.M.Balme,‘ThePlaceofBiologyinAristotle’sPhilosophy’(1987a)
Preface
In 1961, midway through my undergraduate studies, I read Ayn Rand’s Atlas
Shrugged.Ilovedthenovel.Itglowedwithrespectforthemind,andformuchelse
that I valued or came to value. Rand loved Aristotle, and that love permeated
especiallyherlaterwritings,fromAtlasShruggedon.Shecreditedhimwithdefining
‘thebasicprinciplesofarationalviewofexistenceandofman’sconsciousness’,with
rejecting Plato’s otherworldly metaphysics, and with showing (in outline at least)
how reason can come to understand this world based on sense-perception. Rand
thus saw Aristotle as the father of science, and attributed the Renaissance and
Enlightenment(andalloftheirproducts)tohisinfluence:
If we consider the fact that to this day everything that makes us civilized beings, every
rationalvaluethatwepossess—includingthebirthofscience,theindustrialrevolution,the
creationoftheUnitedStates,eventhestructureofourlanguage—istheresultofAristotle’s
influence,ofthedegreetowhich,explicitlyorimplicitly,menacceptedhisepistemological
principles,wewouldhavetosay:neverhavesomanyowedsomuchtooneman.1
IstartedreadingAristotlemyselfandfoundmuchofprofoundvaluephilosoph-
ically,certainlymorethanIhadfoundinthecontemporaryphilosophymaterialsI
studied for my regular courses. I had been fortunate to meet and get to know
Rand, and I talked with her about Aristotle (and much else) on and off over the
nextfifteenorsoyears.TwoideasIwouldliketohighlightherethatattractedme
to Aristotle from the beginning (in the first case, with the help of Rand’s own
discussionof the issues) were: (i) an understanding of causality and explanation in
termsnotofeventsandlawsbutofthingswithnaturesandpotentials;and(ii)theidea
that developed human knowledge takes the form of axiomatically structured
bodiesofunderstanding,whichreflectagraspoftheessentialnaturesandpotentials
oftherelevantthings(includingtheirattributes),agraspacquiredthroughsystem-
aticsensoryobservationandabroadlyinductivemethodology.
Andsobegananadventure,whichhasnotabatedtothisdayandisreflectedin
the chapters of the volume before you. I set out to master what I could of
Aristotle’s philosophic and scientific thinking, of his understanding of human
nature and psychology, and of his view of the life and actions proper to human
beingsasrationalanimals.IchoseColumbiaastheplacetodomygraduatework,
inpartsoIcouldbeinNewYorkandstudywithRand,andinpartbecauseJohn
HermanRandall,Jr.wasatColumbia;Iknewthatwhateverthelimitationsofhis
Aristotle(1960),thebookandthemanhadmuchtoteachme.
1 Rand1961,20(2005,17-18).
viii PREFACE
InmyearlyworkonAristotleduringthatfirstyearatColumbia,1964-65,Iwas
caughtupinAristotle’sinsistencethatlivingorganismscometobe,arestructured,
and function for the sake of something. Acorns and embryos are goal-directed in their
development, as are mature organisms even in their vegetative functioning, even
thoughthereisnoconsciousnesswithintodirectthatdevelopmentandfunction-
ing.Howisthisthesistobeunderstood?
Istruggledwiththatissueforsomeyearsandeventuallydecidedtomakeitmy
dissertationtopic.WhatItookfromRand,andwhatIthinkintheendmadeallthe
difference to my ‘irreducible potential for form’ interpretation, was the insistence
thatweposetheproblemintermsofnaturesandpotentials.ReadersofPartIofthis
volume—thechapterson‘Teleology,Irreducibility,andtheGenerationofAnimals
(GA)’—will find this insistence a pervasive theme, on which I draw in many
differentcontexts.(See,firstofall,chapter1,sec.IV.)
Although I had worked out the heart of my interpretation of the teleology
before I came across David Balme’s work, reading his 1972 Clarendon Aristotle
volume—Aristotle’s De Partibus Animalium I and De Generatione Animalium I
(with excerpts from II.1-3)—was a revelation. Randall had introduced me to Aris-
totle’s biological treatises and their underlying naturalism, but Balme taught me
howtostudythem;andespeciallyasIreadon inhiswritings, hetaughtmetheir
value—thevalueofthewholeofthebiologicalcorpus—foradeeperunderstanding
of Aristotle’s philosophy. I met Balme in 1973 and we stayed in close touch as
colleaguesandthenasfriendsuntilhisdeathinearly1989;Iwasproudtoedithis
Festschriftin1985.Itellsomethingsaboutthemanandhisworkinmyintroduc-
tiontothatvolume(Gotthelf1985a),anddiscusshisworkinsomedetailinsome
ofthechaptersbelow.
ThankstoRandall’sinfluence,asI’vementioned,Ihadstartedreadinginthelate
1960sthemainexplanatorytreatisesinthebiologicalcorpus:GenerationofAnimals,
fortheteleology,andPartsofAnimals,inpartfortheteleology,butinparttoseeto
what extent my earlier-mentioned suspicion that Aristotelian explanatory science
has a demonstrative structure was sound. In that first substantial read of PA, I
thought I could detect glimmers: Aristotle seemed at times to move in his
explanations from features which he clearly took to be more fundamental or
essential to the animals in question to features of those animals that were less
fundamental or essential. But in the limited time I had for that issue, I couldn’t
graspthewholeofAristotle’sprojectinPA.Itwasn’tuntil1985thatItookonthe
problemdirectly,inapaperIdevelopedforaconferenceG.E.R.LloydandIhad
organizedatCambridge.Chapter7ofthepresentvolume,whichgrewoutofthat
conferencepaper,remainsmystatementofmyviewonthistopic(especiallywhen
readinlightoftheelaborationsprovidedinthechapterthatfollowsit).
Although I am perhaps best known for my work on Aristotle’s biology and
naturalphilosophy,IhavehadstrongintereststhroughoutmycareerinAristotle’s
PREFACE ix
metaphysics and ethics. The two chapters constituting Part III of this volume
addressmetaphysicalthemesonwhichthebiologyshedslightandtouchonaspects
of my interpretation of the theory of substance in the central books of the
Metaphysics,onwhichIhopetowritemorefullysomeday.
Personally, I view my interpretation of Aristotle’s natural teleology, and my
account of the broadly axiomatic structure of biological explanation, as my most
important work. Third on that list are the various ways in which my work on
particularphilosophicaltopicsmayhave contributedtotheopeningup,forother
admirers of Aristotle, of the three main biological treatises for subsequent study.
ThisincludesespeciallytheworkIhavedone—muchofitjointlywithmylong-
timefriendandcolleagueinsomanyAristotelianendeavors,JimLennox—tohelp
make the History of Animals, the largest and still least studied treatise in the
Aristotelian corpus, more accessible to scholars. That work is presented in the
three chapters of Part IV, ‘Starting a Science: Theoretical Aims of the History of
Animals(HA)’.
Part V, ‘Aristotle as Theoretical Biologist’, contains two chapters that are
personalfavoritesofmine.‘DarwinonAristotle’wasmotivatedbyastrongstreak
of hero-worship: I love the famous 1882 letter praising Aristotle that Charles
Darwinwroteduringthecourseofhis first readingof Aristotle’s biologicalwork,
andIwasirritatedbeyondbeliefbyanessayIreadintheearly1980sthattriedto
debunk the letter. ‘Debunk the debunker’ was my motto, and I am confident I
succeeded. I also had great fun doing some straight historical detective work, on
detailssuchaswhen,exactly,so-and-sodied(see,forinstance,chapter15,n.4).
Thelastchapter ofPartV, whichIconsider alsoa ‘coda’totheentirevolume,
for its synoptic character, is a lecture that I have delivered many times to general
audiences. I was prompted to write it by an experience I had during my annual
visitstoClareHall,Cambridgeinthe1980s,whenIwoulddescribemyinterestin
Aristotle’s scientific work to the other (often natural-science-oriented) visiting
fellows. ‘Oh, but he’s not a real scientist’, they would say, or ‘Oh, but his work
heldbackthecourseofsciencefor2,000years’.Myresponse,whichIdeliveredfor
thefirsttimeatClareHallin1987,is‘AristotleasScientist:AProperVerdict(with
emphasisonhisbiologicalworks)’.
I have added to each chapter an opening unnumbered footnote in which I
indicate the chapter’s origin and/or its role in my thinking about Aristotle. With
theseintroductoryfootnotes,withthegroupingofthechaptersintoParts,andwith
the extensive cross-references among chapters, I have not thought it necessary to
addsubstantiveintroductionseithertothefivePartsortothevolumeasawhole.
IhavementionedmyinterestinintroducingscholarsandstudentsofAristotleto
the main biological treatises, not just as sources of philosophical insight, but as
whole works in their own right. As indication that I think the chapters in this
volumecandothat,especiallyinPartsI,II,andIV,Ihaveincludedinthetitlesof