Parts of Animals/Movement of Animals/Progression of Animals

by Aristotle, A.L. Peck (Translator), E.S. Forster (Translator)

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there (367 47); subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias s relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343 2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander. After Philip s death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of Peripatetics ), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander s death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as follows: I. Practical: "Nicomachean Ethics"; "Great Ethics" ("Magna Moralia"); "Eudemian Ethics"; "Politics"; "Oeconomica" (on the good of the family); "Virtues and Vices."

II. Logical: "Categories"; "On Interpretation"; "Analytics" ("Prior" and "Posterior"); "On Sophistical Refutations"; "Topica."

III. Physical: Twenty-six works (some suspect) including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc.

IV. "Metaphysics" on being as being.

V. On Art: "Art of Rhetoric" and "Poetics."

VI. Other works including the "Athenian Constitution"; more works also of doubtful authorship.

VII. Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics. The Loeb Classical Library(r) edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics, Science, Biology

560 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1968

About the author

Aristotle (Greek: Αριστοτέλης; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science.
Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical period. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At 17 or 18, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of 37 (c. 347 BC). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored his son Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. He established a library in the Lyceum, which helped him to produce many of his hundreds of books on papyrus scrolls.
Though Aristotle wrote many treatises and dialogues for publication, only around a third of his original output has survived, none of it intended for publication. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. His teachings and methods of inquiry have had a significant impact across the world, and remain a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.
Aristotle's views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. The influence of his physical science extended from late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and was not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics were developed. He influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophies during the Middle Ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church.
Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as "The First Teacher", and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply "The Philosopher", while the poet Dante Alighieri called him "the master of those who know". His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, and were studied by medieval scholars such as Pierre Abélard and Jean Buridan. Aristotle's influence on logic continued well into the 19th century. In addition, his ethics, although always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics.

Reviews

[JV]

O primeiro parágrafo do primeiro tratado de fisiologia do mundo já começa assim:

"There are, as it seems, two ways in which a person may be competent in respect of any study or investigation, whether it be noble or humble: he may have either what can be rightly be called a scientific knowledge of the subject; or he may have what is roughly described as an educated man's competence, and therefore be able to judge correctly which part of the exposition are satisfactory and which are not. That is in fact the sort of person we take as 'man of general education'; his education consists in the habilities to do this."

E o primeiro livro é realmente um tratado sobre ciência em seus aspectos mais palpáveis. Há inclusive um “protreptic”(louvor) para o estudo dos animais:

So far as in us lies, we not leave any one of them, be it never so mean; for though there are animals which have no actractiveness for the senses, yet for the eye of Science, for the student who is naturally of a philosophic spirit and can discern the causes of things, Nature which fashioned them provides joys which cannot be measured. (…) Wherefore we must not betake ourselves to the consideration of the meaner animals with a bad grace, as though we were children; since in all natural things there is somewhat of the marvelous. There is a story which tells how some visitors once wished to meet Heracleitus and when they entered and saw him at the kitchen, warming himself at the stove, they hesitated; but Heracleitus said, “come in, don’t be afraid; there are gods even here”.

Há um padrão no método aristotélico de fazer ciência. O conjunto dos seus tratados biológicos segue geralmente o mesmo percurso:

1- Em tratados “dialéticos” (metafísica, política, ética &c) começaria com os endoxa, as opiniões dos sábios, mas, como é um tratado científico, tem que ter além dos endoxa, a istoria, a investigação e coleção de dados. Trabalho realizado nos 10 livros da Historia animalium;
2- A teoria que surge dessas observações quanto a:
a- Forma: De partibus animalium e De incessu animalium
b- Matéria: De anima
c- Comum entre forma e matéria: Parva Naturalia, De motu animalium e De generatione animalium

Uma das grandes sacadas conceituais é a homologia, conceito que faria sucesso entre os biólogos do século XIX:

I raise this, for at the presente discussion of these matters is an obscure business, lacking any definite scheme. However, this much is plain, that even if we discuss them species by species, we shall be giving the same description many times over for many different animals, since any one of the the attributes I mencion occurs in horses, dogs and human beings alike.

Emblemático torna-se problema de “exposição”. Os evolucionistas explicariam os seres superiores por acidentes ocorridos nos inferiores enquanto Aristóteles explica os inferiores pelo superior:

We must also decide wheather we are to discuss the process by which each animal comes to be formed – which is what the earlier philosophers studied – or rather the animal as it actually is: here too we ought surely to begin with things as they actually are observed to be when completed – the process is for the sake of the actual thing, the thing is not for the sake of the process.

Biologia foi uma das últimas grandes ciências porque para muitos a contemplação de minhocas, baratas e vermes está fora da dignidade dos filósofos. Aristóteles, numa das primeiras frases do tratado, pede que tiremos o "salto alto" e venhamos contemplar a natureza, mesmo nos seres ignóbeis, e encontrar nela beleza:

We ought not not to hesitate or be abashed, but boldly to enter uponour researches concerning animals of every kind and sort, knowing that in not one of them is Nature or Beauty lacking

[Vincent V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well the man was a genious. Ahead of his time in everything pretty much.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The works of Aristotle on biological matters include a record of his observations contained in several books. This volume contains the "Parts", "Movement" and "Progression" while there are also volumes on "History" and "Generation" of animals. These works are first and foremost works of philosophy. They are at the center of Aristotle's thought -- comprising almost one third of his work that has survived. If you attempt to view these works as scientific treatises on biology, zoology, or anatomy based on modern standards you will find them lacking. In spite of this, because of Aristotle's powers of observation, they hold a vast array of information about the natural world, some of which is surprisingly accurate considering the limited tools which Aristotle had at his disposal. His purpose, even within the limitations of the science of his time, was not to just provide a catalog and analysis of biological entities, but to understand the fundamental nature of life -- and the most important animal life of all -- human beings.

[Joe Basile · Rating 5 out of 5]

The lion's share (pun intended) of this volume is taken up by Aristotle's treatise, Parts of Animals. Unlike the History of Animals, in which Aristotle describes the anatomy of various animals, Parts deals with Aristotle's theory of the ends or purposes of the parts of various animals. In Aristotle's view, the parts of each animal work together for the greatest good of the organism and they are organized purposefully by nature in view of that end. While this view may strike modern readers as a bit strange, it was generally accepted until Darwin posited his theory of natural selection. The durability of Aristotle's theory over so many centuries is worth considering. This treatise (as is History of Animals) is replete with careful observations about the anatomies of a wide range of species. It seems unlikely that one person could have himself made so many observations (particularly when one considers how prolific a thinker and teacher Aristotle was across so many branches of philosophy), so Aristotle must have had the help of quite a posse of early naturalists. Parts is the earliest treatise on animal physiology in the history of the world. The modern reader could easily point out its "errors", but such a critic would miss the point - given the tools that Aristotle and his students had at their disposal, this treatise is a masterpiece.