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D'Arcy Thompson: His Conception of the Living Body

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

George Kimball Plochmann
George Kimball Plochmann*
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University
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Extract

D'Arcy Thompson looked upon himself as a follower of Aristotle in biology, and was an erudite student and translator of biological writings of the Stagyrite. A number of Aristotle's chief terms are to be found in Thompson's masterpiece, On Growth and Form, although these terms—such as ‘cause,’ ‘form,’ ‘movement,’ and the like—undergo some change, generally a contraction, of meaning. But as a tireless investigator of living bodies of all sorts, Thompson developed his own methods for manipulating his concepts, and it is my hope to indicate briefly but critically what the methods are. In so doing, it will be profitable to make comparisons with certain other biologists of past and present, to point up the issues more sharply.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 1953 , pp. 139 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1953

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