Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology
- OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Biology and Theology in Aristotle’s Theoretical and Practical Sciences
- Chapter 2 The Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 3 Aristotle’s Biology and Early Medicine
- Chapter 4 Empiricism and Hearsay in Aristotle’s Zoological Collection of Facts
- Chapter 5 Parts of Animals Book 1 on Methods of Inquiry
- Chapter 6 Teleological Perspectives in Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 7 Aristotle’s Biological Metaphysics
- Chapter 8 Life-Cycles and the Actions of Nutritive Soul in Aristotle
- Chapter 9 Aristotle on Animal Generation and Hereditary Resemblance
- Chapter 10 The Science of Perception in Aristotle
- Chapter 11 Aristotle’s Theory of Animal Agency and the Problem of Self-Motion
- Chapter 12 Animal Cognition in Aristotle
- Chapter 13 Elements of Biology in Aristotle’s Political Science
- Chapter 14 The Early Reception of Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 15 The Reception of Aristotle’s Biology in Late Antiquity and Beyond
- Chapter 16 Aristotelian Teleology and Philosophy of Biology in the Darwinian Era
- Chapter 17 Aristotle and Contemporary Biology
- Afterword: Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology – Its Coming-to-Be and Its Being
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index Locorum
- OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS
- References
Chapter 17 - Aristotle and Contemporary Biology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology
- OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Biology and Theology in Aristotle’s Theoretical and Practical Sciences
- Chapter 2 The Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 3 Aristotle’s Biology and Early Medicine
- Chapter 4 Empiricism and Hearsay in Aristotle’s Zoological Collection of Facts
- Chapter 5 Parts of Animals Book 1 on Methods of Inquiry
- Chapter 6 Teleological Perspectives in Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 7 Aristotle’s Biological Metaphysics
- Chapter 8 Life-Cycles and the Actions of Nutritive Soul in Aristotle
- Chapter 9 Aristotle on Animal Generation and Hereditary Resemblance
- Chapter 10 The Science of Perception in Aristotle
- Chapter 11 Aristotle’s Theory of Animal Agency and the Problem of Self-Motion
- Chapter 12 Animal Cognition in Aristotle
- Chapter 13 Elements of Biology in Aristotle’s Political Science
- Chapter 14 The Early Reception of Aristotle’s Biology
- Chapter 15 The Reception of Aristotle’s Biology in Late Antiquity and Beyond
- Chapter 16 Aristotelian Teleology and Philosophy of Biology in the Darwinian Era
- Chapter 17 Aristotle and Contemporary Biology
- Afterword: Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology – Its Coming-to-Be and Its Being
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index Locorum
- OTHER VOLUMES IN THE SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS
- References
Summary
Aristotle’s biology and contemporary evolutionary biology appear to be fundamentally at odds. Any comparative biology seeks to explain the fit and diversity of organismal form, but Aristotelian and contemporary biology do so in very different, evidently incompatible, ways. In this chapter, I argue for a reconciliation between the two biologies. Recent advances in evolutionary thinking suggest that the form of population thinking pursued by twentieth-century evolutionary biology must be augmented by an understanding of the ways in which organisms as adaptive, purposive entities contribute to adaptive evolution. Moreover, the phenomenon of adaptation cannot adequately be understood unless we take into account the ways in which an organism’s “way of life” structures its experience of its conditions of existence. The active role that organisms play in evolution is nicely captured in Aristotle’s concept of bios – way of life.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Biology , pp. 280 - 297Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Guide to Further Reading
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