The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology, edited by Sophia M. Connell, is a valuable and significant addition to the Companion collection. The essays in this volume offer engaging exegeses of various aspects of Aristotle’s biology and orient the reader in key interpretative debates in current scholarship. In this respect, the guides to further reading following each chapter are also very useful resources. Beyond exposition, many of the contributors advance their own arguments about the questions at hand, which will undoubtedly encourage further fruitful discussion. This is, accordingly, an excellent collection for the newcomer and specialist alike.
The volume contains 18 chapters by well-known scholars. After Connell’s introduction, where the integration of Aristotle’s biology with the rest of his philosophy is emphasized, chapters 1–3 contextualize his biology relative to his theology (Monte Ransome Johnson) and his predecessors (Karel Thein, Hynek Bartoš). Chapters 4–6 introduce the methodology (Mariska Leunissen, Devin Henry) and teleological perspective (Jessica Gelber) underlying Aristotle’s study of biology. Chapters 7–11 discuss the activities of living beings, beginning with their ontological status (Charlotte Witt), moving to the activities fundamental to living beings, nutrition and reproduction (R.A.H. King, Connell), then to activities characteristic of animals, perception and self-motion (Cynthia Freeland, Klaus Corcilius). Chapters 12–13 explore the difference between the nonhuman and human by considering the various cognitive capacities of animals (Connell) and the influence of Aristotle’s biological theses on his politics and ethics (Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi). Chapters 14–17 turn to the western reception of Aristotle’s biology, from his early successors (Myrto Hatzimichali) to later antiquity (Andrea Falcon), to a comparison with Darwin (David Depew) and contemporary biology (Denis Walsh). An afterword by James G. Lennox (Chapter 18) on the history and legacy of Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology (Cambridge 1987), edited by himself and Allan Gotthelf, closes the volume. As the richness and variety of this collection make it impossible for me to address each chapter individually, I will instead highlight a few which I find to be exemplary of the project.
Hynek Bartoš’ contribution (Chapter 3) argues (conclusively, to my mind) that Aristotle’s biology is far more engaged with the Hippocratic writings than has usually been recognized. He demonstrates this by working through the instructive example of Aristotle’s comments in the Parva naturalia on the relationship between medicine and natural philosophy. According to Bartoš, these comments, in which Aristotle takes medicine to use the explanatory principles of natural philosophy, intervene in a debate among physicians with which Aristotle expected his readers to be familiar. As Bartoš says, Aristotle’s debt to the Hippocratics for the most part remains understudied and underappreciated by commentators (48–49); hence this chapter points the way forward for new and valuable research.
Devin Henry’s contribution (Chapter 5) introduces the reader to a methodological issue prominently discussed by commentators: the connection between the method of Aristotle’s biology and the model for scientific inquiry in his Posterior Analytics. Henry analyses the discussion in Parts of Animals of the methods to be used for defining animals and offers a satisfying interpretation of these passages by taking Parts of Animals on its own terms. Whereas looking at these passages through the lens of the Posterior Analytics might lead one to think Aristotle rejects one of the two methods discussed, Henry shows that Aristotle thinks that both methods should be used depending on context. The chapter thus illustrates an interpretative desideratum: that one should ‘read the biological works in their own right first’ (93).
Finally, Denis Walsh’s contribution (Chapter 17) makes the intriguing case for the relevance of Aristotle’s biology to contemporary biology and philosophy of biology. He argues that evolutionary biology, with its sub-organismal population thinking, needs a ‘substantive theory of the organism’, for which it can turn to Aristotle for inspiration (287). This speaks to the generative potential of Aristotle’s biological writings; and if Walsh is right, the curious biologist might begin with Gelber’s chapter (Chapter 6) for insight into Aristotle’s organism-centred teleology.
This collection thus showcases many important elements of recent scholarship on Aristotle’s biology. Probably its biggest impact on the field, though, will be in making the study of Aristotle’s biology more accessible. As the first comprehensive introductory volume on Aristotle’s biological corpus, and one that fulfils that role admirably, it will be a reliable resource for newer students of Aristotle, scholars of other parts of Aristotle’s philosophy turning to his biology and historians of biology interested in the premodern.
Lennox’s afterword (Chapter 18) on Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology, whose publication helped spark philosophical interest in the topic, underscores the progress made from past neglect of Aristotle’s biological treatises to today’s flourishing literature. Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology aimed to show the relevance of the biology to the study of the rest of Aristotle’s philosophy, and this Companion confirms that that aim has been achieved; yet one can hardly read this collection without also appreciating the appeal of studying Aristotle’s biology for its own sake.
