Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 7 - Male and female in Aristotle's Generation of Animals

  • Edited by James G. Lennox, University of Pittsburgh, Robert Bolton, Rutgers University, New Jersey
  • Book:
    Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle
    Published online:
    06 December 2010
    Print publication:
    18 November 2010, pp 147-167

  • Summary

    Aristotle's theory is not that the male provides the form and the female the matter of the generated animal, but that the male, in an act analogous to what one can call fertilization, begins the process by which the female grows within herself and bears their mutual offspring. It is this process, the process of the generation of animals, in relation to which Aristotle speaks of the male as the formal and the female as the material principle, and in relation to which he identifies the male as active and the female as passive. The author suggested that if Aristotle's theory of animal generation depicts the father as providing the form of an animal and the mother its matter, it is a theory inconsonant with his larger metaphysical views. With very few exceptions, Aristotle does not characteristically describe the male as providing the form of the animal.