Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:15:38.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

(1) Aristotle, de Generatione et Corruptione. Translated by H. H. Joachim. Printed in volume 2 of The Works of Aristotle, translated into English. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2) Aristotle, de Incessu Animalium. Translated by A. S. L. Farquharson. Printed in volume 5 of The Works of Aristotle, translated into English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1912.Google Scholar
(3) Aristotle, de Motu Animalium. Translated by A. S. L. Farquharson. Printed in volume 5 of The Works of Aristotle, translated into English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1912.Google Scholar
(4) Aristotle, de Partibus Animalium. Translated by William Ogle. Printed in volume 5 of The Works of Aristotle, translated into English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1912.Google Scholar
(5) Aristotle, Historia Animalium. Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. Published as volume 4 of The Works of Aristotle, translated into English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1910.Google Scholar
(6) LeGros Clark, W. E. and Medawar, P. B. (editors), Essays on Growth and Form Presented to D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1945; reprinted 1947.Google Scholar
(7) Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species, New York: Modern Library, no date.Google Scholar
(8) Dunn, L. C., “Monsters,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1949 edition.Google Scholar
(9) Haldane, J. B. S., “Interaction of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.” Printed in Sellars, McGill, and Farber, Philosophy for the Future, New York: Macmillan & Co., 1949.Google Scholar
(10) Lillie, Ralph S., General Biology and Philosophy of Organism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945.Google Scholar
(11) Plato, The Laws. Translated by Benjamin Jowett, in The Dialogues of Plato, 2 volumes, New York: Random House, 1937.Google Scholar
(12) Plato, The Republic. Translated by Paul Shorey. Loeb Classical Library.Google Scholar
(13) Plato, The Timaeus. Translated by Francis Macdonald Cornford in Plato's Cosmology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948.Google Scholar
(14) Schrödinger, E., What is Life? New York: Macmillan & Co., 1945.Google Scholar
(15) Spencer, , First Principles, New York: D. Appleton, 1904 (reprint edition).Google Scholar
(16) Spencer, , Principles of Biology, 2 volumes, New York: D. Appleton, 1904 (reprint edition).Google Scholar
(17) Thompson, D'Arcy Wentworth, On Growth and Form, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1942 (new edition).Google Scholar
(18) Thomson, J. A. and Geddes, Patrick, Life: Outlines of General Biology. New York: Harper Brothers.Google Scholar
(19) Weiss, Paul, Principles of Development, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1939.Google Scholar