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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Optimality And Teleology In Aristotle's Natural Science, Devin Henry
Optimality And Teleology In Aristotle's Natural Science, Devin Henry
Devin Henry
In this paper I examine the role of optimality reasoning in Aristotle’s natural science. By “optimality reasoning” I mean reasoning that appeals to some conception of “what is best” in order to explain why things are the way they are. We are first introduced to this pattern of reasoning in the famous passage at Phaedo 97b8-98a2, where (Plato’s) Socrates invokes “what is best” as a cause (aitia) of things in nature. This passage can be seen as the intellectual ancestor of Aristotle’s own principle, expressed by the famous dictum “nature does nothing in vain but always what is best for …
Review Of Monte Ransome Johnson's Aristotle On Teleology, Devin Henry
Review Of Monte Ransome Johnson's Aristotle On Teleology, Devin Henry
Devin Henry
No abstract provided.
Aristotle On The Mechanisms Of Inheritance, Devin Henry
Aristotle On The Mechanisms Of Inheritance, Devin Henry
Devin Henry
In this paper I address an important question in Aristotle’s biology, What are the causal mechanisms behind the transmission of biological form? Aristotle’s answer to this question, I argue, is found in Generation of Animals Book 4 in connection with his investigation into the phenomenon of inheritance. There we are told that an organism’s reproductive material contains a set of ‘‘movements’’ which are derived from the various ‘‘potentials’’ of its nature (the internal principle of change that initiates and controls development). These ‘‘movements,’’ I suggest, function as specialized vehicles for com- municating the parts of the parent’s heritable form during …
Embryological Models In Ancient Philosophy, Devin Henry
Embryological Models In Ancient Philosophy, Devin Henry
Devin Henry
No abstract provided.