The aim of this paper is to evaluate the level of gender bias in Aristotle's Generation of Animals while exercising due care in the analysis of its arguments. I argue that while the GA theory is clearly sexist, the traditional interpretation fails to diagnose the problem correctly. The traditional interpretation focuses on three main sources of evidence: (1) Aristotle's claim that the female is, as it were, a "disabled" (πεπηρωμɛνo;ν) male; (2) the claim at GA IV.3, 767b6-8 that females are (...) a departure from the kind; and (3) Aristotle's supposed claim at GA IV.3, 768a21-8 that the most ideal outcome of reproduction is a male offspring that perfectly resembles its father. I argue that each of these passages has either been misunderstood or misrepresented by commentators. In none of these places is Aristotle suggesting that females are imperfect members of the species or that they result from the failure to achieve some teleological goal. I defend the view that the GA does not see reproduction as occurring for the sake of producing males; rather, what sex an embryo happens to become is determined entirely by non-teleological forces operating through material necessity. This interpretation is consistent with Aristotle's view in GA II.5 that females have the same soul as the male (741a7) as well as the argument in Metaphysics X.9 that sexual difference is not part of the species form but is an affection (παθoç) arising from the matter (1058b21-4). While the traditional interpretation has tended to exaggerate the level of sexism in Aristotle's developmental biology, the GA is by no means free of gender bias as some recent scholarship has claimed. In the final section of the paper I point to one passage where Aristotle clearly falls back on sexist assumptions in order to answer the difficult question, "Why are animals divided into sexes?". I argue that this passage in particular poses a serious challenge to anyone attempting to absolve Aristotle's developmental biology of the charge of sexism. (shrink)
In their environment, plants are continuously submitted to natural stimuli such as wind, rain, temperature changes, wounding, etc. These signals induce a cascade of events which lead to metabolic and morphogenetic responses.In this paper the different steps are described and discussed starting from the reception of the signal by a plant organ to the final morphogenetic response. In our laboratory two plants are studied: Bryonia dioica for which rubbing the internode (...) results in reduced elongation and enhanced radial expansion (Boyer et al., 1979) and Bidens pilosa for which the response occurs at distance, hence pricking the cotyledon of a plantlet induces the growth inhibition of both the hypocotyl (Desbiez et al., 1981) and the axillary bud of the pricked cotyledon (Desbiez, 1973). (shrink)
In this paper I explore Aristotle’s views on natural kinds and the compatibility of pluralism and realism, a topic that has generated considerable interest among contemporary philosophers. I argue that, when it came to zoology, Aristotle denied that there is only one way of organizing the diversity of the living world into natural kinds that will yield a single, unified system of classification. Instead, living things can be grouped and regrouped into various cross-cutting kinds on the basis of objective similarities (...) and differences in ways that subserve the explanatory context. Since the explanatory aims of zoology are diverse and variegated, the kinds it recognizes must be equally diverse and variegated. At the same time, there are certain constraints on which kinds can be selected. And those constraints derive more from the causal structure of the world than from the proclivities of the classifier (hence the realism). This distinguishes Aristotle’s version of pluralistic realism from those contemporary versions (like Dupré’s “promiscuous realism”) that treat all or most classifications of a given domain as equally legitimate and not just a sub-set of kinds recognized by the science that studies it. By contrast, Aristotle privileges scientifically important kinds on the basis of their role in causal investigations. On this picture natural kinds are those kinds with the sort of causal structure that allows them to enter into scientific explanations. In the final section I argue that Aristotle’s zoology should remain of interest to philosophers and biologists alike insofar as it combines a pluralistic form of realism with a rank-free approach to classification. (shrink)
A general article discussing philosophical issues arising in connection with Aristotle's "Generation of Animals" (Chapter from Blackwell's Companion to Aristotle).
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 the substance from among the possibilities concerning each kind of animal” (Progression of Animals II, 704b12-18). The paper is focused around exploring three questions that arise in connection with Aristotle’s use of this optimality principle: (1) How do we understand the concept of “the best” at work in the principle? (2) How does Aristotle conceive of “the range of possibilities”? And, finally, (3) what role does optimality reasoning play in Aristotle’s natural science? Is it a special form of demonstration in which the optimality principle functions as one of its premises, or is it a heuristic device that helps uncover those causally relevant features of a natural substances that ultimately serve as middle terms in demonstrations? In the final section I return to the comparison between Plato and Aristotle and argue that, while both see the natural world as the product of an optimizing agent and while both see this assumption as licensing a pattern of reasoning that appeals to a certain conception of “the best”, they disagree fundamentally over what the optimization agent is and how it operates. Thus, despite their general agreement, it would be a mistake to think that Aristotle simply took over Plato’s use of optimality reasoning without significant modifications. (shrink)
The focus of this paper is Aristotle's solution to the problem inherited from Socrates: How could a man fail to restrain himself when he believes that what he desires is wrong? In NE 7 Aristotle attempts to reconcile the Socratic denial of akrasia with the commonly held opinion that people act in ways they know to be bad, even when it is in their power to act otherwise. This project turns out to be largely successful, for what Aristotle shows us (...) is that if we distinguish between two ways of having knowledge (potentially and actually), the Socratic thesis can effectively account for a wide range of cases (collectively referred to here as drunk-akrasia) in which an agent acts contrary to his general knowledge of the Good, yet can still be said to know in the qualified sense that his actions are wrong. However, Book 7 also shows that the Socratic account of akrasia cannot take us any farther than drunk-akrasia, for unlike drunk-akrasia, genuine akrasia cannot be reduced to a failure of knowledge. This agent knows in the unqualified sense that his actions are wrong. The starting-point of my argument is that Aristotle's explanation of genuine akrasia requires a different solution than the one found in NE 7 which relies on the distinction between qualified and unqualified knowing: genuinely akratic behaviour is due to the absence of an internal conflict that a desire for the proper pleasures of temperance would create if he could experience them. (shrink)
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the level of gender bias in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals while exercising due care in the analysis of its arguments. I argue that while the GA theory is clearly sexist, the traditional interpretation fails to diagnose the problem correctly. The traditional interpretation focuses on three main sources of evidence: (1) Aristotle’s claim that the female is, as it were, a “disabled” (πεπηρωμένον) male; (2) the claim at GA IV.3, 767b6-8 that females are (...) a departure from the kind; and (3) Aristotle’s supposed claim at GA IV.3, 768a21-8 that the most ideal outcome of reproduction is a male offspring that perfectly resembles its father. I argue that each of these passages has either been misunderstood or misrepresented by commentators. In none of these places is Aristotle suggesting that females are imperfect members of the species or that they result from the failure to achieve some teleological goal. I defend the view that the GA does not see reproduction as occurring for the sake of producing males; rather, what sex an embryo happens to become is determined entirely by non-teleological forces operating through material necessity. This interpretation is consistent with Aristotle’s view in GA II.5 that females have the same soul as the male (741a7) as well as the argument in Metaphysics X.9 that sexual difference is not part of the species form but is an affection (πάθος) arising from the matter (1058b21-4). While the traditional interpretation has tended to exaggerate the level of sexism in Aristotle’s developmental biology, the GA is by no means free of gender bias as some recent scholarship has claimed. In the final section of the paper I point to one passage where Aristotle clearly falls back on sexist assumptions in order to answer the difficult question, “Why are animals divided into sexes?”. I argue that this passage in particular poses a serious challenge to anyone attempting to absolve Aristotle’s developmental biology of the charge of sexism. (shrink)
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 communicating the parts of the parent’s heritable form during the act of reproduction. After exploring the details of this mechanism, I then take up Aristotle’s theory of inheritance proper. At the heart of the theory are three general principles (or 'laws') that govern the interactions between the maternal and paternal movements, the outcome of which determines the pattern of inheritance for the offspring. Although this paper is primarily aimed at providing a detailed analysis of Aristotle’s account of inheritance, the results of that analysis have implications for other areas of Aristotle’s biology. One of the most interesting of these is the question of whether Aristotle’s biology is anti-evolutionary (as traditionally assumed) or whether (as I argue) it leaves room for a theory of evolution by natural selection, even if Aristotle himself never took that step. (shrink)
Historically embryogenesis has been among the most philosophically intriguing phenomena. In this paper I focus on one aspect of biological development that was particularly perplexing to the ancients: self-organisation. For many ancients, the fact that an organism determines the important features of its own development required a special model for understanding how this was possible. This was especially true for Aristotle, Alexander, and Simplicius who all looked to contemporary technology to supply that model. However, they did not all agree on (...) what kind of device should be used. In this paper I explore the way these ancients made use of technology as a model for the developing embryo. However, my purpose here is more than just the historical interest of knowing which devices were used by whom and how each of them worked; I shall largely ignore the details of how the various devices actually worked. Instead I shall look at the use of technology from a philosophical perspective. As we shall see, the different choices of device reveal fundamental differences in the way each thinker understood the nature of biological development itself. Thus, the central aim of this paper is to examine, not who used what devices and how they worked, but why they used those particular devices and what they thought their functioning could tell us about the nature of embryological phenomena. (shrink)
This paper focuses on two methodological questions that arise from Plato’s account of collection and division. First, what place does the method of collection and division occupy in Plato’s account of philosophical inquiry? Second, do collection and division in fact constitute a formal “method” (as most scholars assume) or are they simply informal techniques that the philosopher has in her toolkit for accomplishing different philosophical tasks? I argue that Plato sees collection and division as useful tools for achieving two distinct (...) goals – generating real definitions and discovering the basic natural kinds of a given domain of knowledge – both of which occupy a preliminary stage in his account of philosophical inquiry. As to the second question, I claim that the evidence for seeing collection and division as a formal method is weak. Although Plato calls the procedure a technê and a methodos, he makes no real attempt to formalize it in any way. For Plato, collection and division do not constitute an algorithmic process that can be learned from a rule book. Instead the ability to collect and divide properly are skills that good dialecticians must acquire through the kind of hands-on training illustrated by the Sophist and Statesman. Whereas Aristotle insists on formal rules for making proper divisions, Plato seems to emphasize the need to recognize where the natural joints of the world are. In this sense, Plato’s Sophist and Statesman and Aristotle’s Topics and Analytics present two very different pictures of collection and division. (shrink)
Aim To ascertain the quantity and nature of gifts and items provided by the pharmaceutical industry in Australia to medical specialists and to consider whether these are appropriate in terms of justifiable ethical standards, empirical research and views expressed in the literature.
Abstract Moral judgement stage in 69 adult students was investigated in relation to the cognitive articulation and content of their moral belief systems, the content and structure of their self?identity systems, and perceived favouritism by their parents in child?rearing. Articulation of the moral belief system was not related to moral stage; however, belief content was related to stage, with both pre?conventional and post?conventional subjects tending to reject orthodox moral values. The study failed to confirm earlier claims for greater self?ideal disparity (...) with increasing moral maturity, and cross?cultural comparisons with an Irish sample suggest that such progression was an artefact of the a priori measures used. Pre? and post?conventional subjects shared strong patterns of identification with siblings, with no distinctive pattern for conventional subjects. Finally, moral stage, in interaction with sex, was related to perceived differences in favouritism of like? and cross?sex parents, making sense of a number of reported anomalies in the moral development literature. (shrink)
Abstract The study explores cognitive, affective and situational factors in child?rearing and their relation to children's constructions of discipline and to the maturity of their social interactions. Subjects were 17 children aged between three years 10 months and four years 11 months and their mothers. Mothers? individual constructions of different classes of their own and their children's transgressions were measured using two Repertory Grids. Children's constructions and feelings about a recent conflict with parents were measured by a structured interview. Their (...) patterns of hostile behaviour were assessed with a standardized scoring system applied to diary records of directly observed social interactions at nursery school. Regarding mothers? constructions of transgressions, the findings only partially supported an attributional analysis of parenting. Mothers were primarily concerned with the intentionality of their children's behaviour and its harm potential; they gave no more consideration to developmental components such as lack of knowledge, the capacity for self?control or situational constraints in constructions of their children's transgressions than in constructions of their own transgressions. While overall there was little relation between mothers? constructions of children's transgressions and their method of handling them, constructions were closely linked to behaviour in some situations (viz. disobedience) and poorly linked in other situations (viz. verbal aggression to parents, and physical harm to self). Those patterns were related to mothers? constructions of the child's intention and their affective response considered jointly; it seemed that mothers? motivations affected the way they categorized the misdemeanour which in turn affected their disciplinary response. Children were classified on the basis of observed behaviour into one of three hostility groups: harassers, teasers, and specifics. The mothers of the three groups of children were not distinguished by misdemeanours cited nor by disciplinary response. They were differentiated by their constructions of misdemeanours, especially by their different constructions of harm inflicted by their children on others. The three groups of children were differentiated from each other by the degree of anger attributed to their mother when they were naughty and by their level of identification with the mother's disciplinary stance. (shrink)
El artículo se propone determinar el límite entre fenomenología y gnosis en la filosofía del cristianismo de M. Henry. Para ello analiza la cuestión del Archi-hijo en Soy yo la verdad, la de Archi-carne en Encarnación y la de la legitimación de las palabras que Cristo pronuncia sobre sí mismo en Palabras de Cristo. El análisis muestra, en primer lugar, en qué medida el tratamiento de estas tres cuestiones supera el límite estrictamente fenomenológico del pensamiento y remite a una (...) gnosis o experiencia de fe particular. En segundo lugar, explicita cómo, independientemente de esta gnosis, la intuición henryana acerca de la esencia de la vida abre un acceso fenomenológico genuino a la relación religiosa. (shrink)
Henry M. Sheffer is well known to logicians for the discovery (or rather, the rediscovery) of the ?Sheffer stroke? of propositional logic. But what else did Sheffer contribute to logic? He published very little, though he is known to have been carrying on a rather mysterious research program in logic; the only substantial result of this research was the unpublished monograph The General Theory of Notational Relativity. The main aim of this paper is to explain, as far as possible (...) (given the scanty evidence), the nature of Sheffer's program, and the reasons for its failure. The paper concludes with a discussion of Sheffer's only true logical descendant, C.H. Langford, and his contributions to model theory. (shrink)
