The Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle's Biology
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F21%3A10437905" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/21:10437905 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108181792.003" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108181792.003</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108181792.003" target="_blank" >10.1017/9781108181792.003</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
The Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle's Biology
Original language description
The chapter sketches a broad picture of some ideas, antecedent to Aristotle's work, about the origin and development of living beings. Against the background of the new cosmological and metaphysical framework of Aristotle's biological enterprise, it emphasizes what distinguishes Aristotle from the Presocratics and Plato: his rejection of a shared causal story that would account for both the origin of the universe and the birth of animals and plants. This shift helps to make intelligible Aristotle's rejection of hylozoism and of the opposite view that life arises, mysteriously, from inanimate material ingredients. To demonstrate that Aristotle discusses the biological views of his predecessors without directly using them to build his own theory, the chapter first turns to Presocratic fragments, mostly of Anaximander and Empedocles, which connect biological matters and cosmogony. Second, the chapter takes a fresh look at how Plato reshapes this connection in his Timaeus, offering a new account of the nature of the universe and the nature of human beings. This account then enables us to evaluate, in the chapter's final section, the changes that Aristotle brings to the study of living beings, including his rejection of the notion of the latter's progressive formation.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2021
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Biology
ISBN
978-1-107-19773-2
Number of pages of the result
16
Pages from-to
30-45
Number of pages of the book
355
Publisher name
Cambridge University Press
Place of publication
Cambridge
UT code for WoS chapter
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