Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T00:48:07.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Teleology Without Tears: Aristotle and the Role of Mechanistic Conceptions of Organisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Sylvia Berryman
Sylvia Berryman*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BCV6T 1Z1, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper I outline a role for mechanistic conceptions of organisms in ancient Greek natural philosophy, especially the study of organisms. By ‘mechanistic conceptions’ I mean the use of ideas and techniques drawn from the field of mechanics to investigate the natural world. ‘Mechanistic conceptions’ of organisms in ancient Greek philosophy, then, are those that draw on the ancient understanding of the field called ‘mechanics’ — hê mêchanikê technê—to investigate living things, rather than those bearing some perceived similarity to modern notions of ‘the mechanical.’ I have argued elsewhere that evidence of mechanistic conceptions of the natural world can be found, not only among seventeenth and eighteenth century ‘mechanical philosophers,’ but also—albeit in vestigial form — in some ancient Greek texts. Unfortunately, these reports are slight, often by detractors of this approach, and offer only clues as to the motivational context for employing these mechanical conceptions. Here, my purpose is to suggest what role they might have played in the history of natural philosophy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 351 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2007

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

Balme, David. 1939. ‘Greek Science and Mechanism I. Aristotle on Nature and Chance,’ Classical Quarterly 33 (1939) 129–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berryman, Sylvia. 2002a. ‘Democritus and the Explanatory Power of the Void.’ In Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alexander Mourelatos, ed. Caston, V. and Graham, D.. London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar
Berryman, Sylvia. 2002b. ‘Galen and the Mechanical Philosophy,’ Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 35 (2002) 235–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berryman, Sylvia. 2002c. ‘Aristotle on Pneuma and Animal Self-Motion,’ Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (2002) 85–97.Google Scholar
Berryman, Sylvia. 2003. ‘Ancient Automata and Mechanical Explanation,’ Phronesis 48 (2003) 345–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnyeat, Myles. 1992. ‘Is an Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind Still Credible? A Draft.’ In Essays on Aristotle's Anima, De Nussbaum, Martha C. and Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Charles, David. 1988. ‘Aristotle on Hypothetical Necessity and Irreducibility,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 69 (1988) 1–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Code, Alan and Julius, Moravcsik. 1992. ‘Explaining Various Forms of Living.’ In Essays on Aristotle's De Anima. Nussbaum, Martha C. and Amélie Oksenberg, Rorty eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, John M. 1987. ‘Hypothetical Necessity and Natural Teleology.’ In Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology, Gotthelf, Allan and Lennox, James G. eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, John M. 2004. ‘Aristotle on Natural Teleology.’ In Knowledge, Nature and the Good: Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University.Press.Google Scholar
Furley, David J. 1989. ‘Aristotle and the Atomists on Motion in a Void.’ In Cosmic Problems: Essays on Greek and Roman Philosophy of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University.Press.Google Scholar
Gotthelf, Allan. 1976. ‘Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality.’ In Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology, Gotthelf, Allan and Lennox, James G. eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gotthelf, Allan. 1997. ‘Understanding Aristotle's Teleology.’ In Final Causality in Nature and Human Affairs, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy vol. 30, Hassing, Richard F. ed. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Hankinson, R.J. 1998. Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Thomas. 1913. Aristarchus of Samos: the Ancient Copernicus. A New Greek Text with Translation and Notes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Henry, Devin. 2005. ‘Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy,’ Phronesis 50 (2005) 1–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, Ulrike. 1990. ‘War Demokrits Weltbild mechanistisch und antiteleologisch?’ Phronesis 35 (1990) 225–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Monte. 2005. Aristotle on Teleology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judson., Lindsay 2005. ‘Aristotelian Teleology,’ Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29 (2005) 341–66.Google Scholar
Kahn, Charles. 1985. ‘The Prime Mover and Teleology.’ In Aristotle on Nature and Living Things, Gotthelf, Allan ED. Bristol: Mathesis Publications.Google Scholar
Kirk, G.S. Raven, J.E. and Schofield, M.. 1983. The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthen, Mohan. 1989. ‘The Four Causes in Aristotle's Embryology.’ In Nature, Knowledge and Virtue: Essays in Memory of Joan Kung, Kraut, R. and Penner, T. eds. Apeiron Special Issue 22 (1989).Google Scholar
Mellor, D. H. 1991. ‘In Defense of Dispositions.’ In Matters of Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University.Press.Google Scholar
Morsink, Johannes. 1979. ‘Was Aristotle's Biology Sexist?’ Journal of the History of Biology (1979) 83–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1978. Aristotle's De Motu Animalium: Text with translation, commentary, and interpretive essays. Princeton: Princeton University.Press.Google Scholar
Preus, Anthony. 1970. ‘Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Generation of Animals,’ Journal of the History of Biology 3 (1970) 1–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preus, Anthony. 1977. ‘Galen's Criticism of Aristotle's Conception Theory,’ Journal of the History of Biology 10 (1977) 65–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solmsen, Friedrich. 1960. Aristotle's System of the Physical World: A Comparison with His Predecessors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Sorabji, Richard. 1980. Necessity, Cause and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle's Theory. London and Ithaca NY: Duckworth and Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, C.C.W. 1999. The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus. Fragments, A Text and Translation with Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tress, Daryl McGowan. 1992. ‘The Metaphysical Science of Aristotle's Generation of Animals and Its Feminist Critics,’ Review of Metaphysics 46 (1992) 307–41.Google Scholar
Von Staden, Heinrich. 1989. Herophilus and the Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria, edition, translation and essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Von Staden, Heinrich. 1997. ‘Teleology and Mechanism: Aristotelian Biology and Early Hellenistic Medicine.’ In Aristotelische Biologie: Intentionen, Methoden, Ergebnisse, WKullmann, olfgang and Föllinger, Sabine eds. Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar