Sophia Connell

In de Generatione Animalium (GA) Aristotle argues that both parents contribute to generation through differentiated products of the nutritive process, governed by nutritive soul. This appears to agree in general with the fact that the nutritive soul is the same thing as the generative soul, as set out in de Anima. This essay analyses the contribution of the female animal to generation as a nutritive residue and the result of her nutritive functioning. The female contribution to generation is made useful by its location and latent potentials: it ends up in the uterus ready to become all the parts of the new animal’s body, once its own nutritive soul becomes actualised. After giving a comprehensive overview of the content of the female contribution as residue of nutrition, the last part of the essay articulates a challenge that this presents for Aristotle’s account of nutritive soul. Since the female is unable to generate without the addition of the male generative residue, it would seem that her nutritive soul is defective, lacking the generative capacity that males possess. Articulating this problem requires a closer analysis of the connection between nutrition and generation in Aristotle philosophy. The essay finally concludes that because the female animal’s soul attempts to perpetuate an animal the same in form into the next generation this is enough to render it generative as well as nutritive.

Aristotle's voluminous writings on animals have often been marginalised in the history of philosophy. Providing the first full-length comprehensive account of Aristotle's biology, its background, content and influence, this Companion situates his study of living nature within his broader philosophy and theology and differentiates it from other medical and philosophical theories. An overview of empiricism in Aristotle's Historia Animalium is followed by an account of the general methodology recommended in the Parts of Animals. An account of the importance of Aristotle's teleological perspective and the fundamental metaphysics of biological entities provides a basis for understanding living capacities, such as nutrition, reproduction, perception and self-motion, in his philosophy. The importance of Aristotle's zoology to both his ethics and political philosophy is highlighted. The volume explores in detail the changing interpretations and influences of Aristotle's biological works from antiquity to modern philosophy of science. It is essential for both students and scholars.

This paper argues that focusing on Aristotle’s theory of generation as primarily ‘hylomorphic’ can lead to difficulties. This is especially evident when interpreting the association between the male and sentient soul at GA 2.5. If the focus is on the male’s contribution as form and the female’s as matter, then soul becomes divided into nutritive from female and sentient from male which makes little sense in Aristotle’s biological ontology. In contrast, by seeing Aristotle’s theory as ‘archēkinētic’, a process initiated by the male, the development of nutritive and sentient capacities emerges as intertwined, neither capacity originating in only one sex.

Elizabeth Anscombe and Mary Midgley discussed Aristotle’s ethics as an alternative to modern moral philosophy. This idea is best known from Anscombe’s 1958 paper ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. The mainstream response has been to design a normative theory of ‘virtue ethics’ to rival deontology and consequentialism. This essay argues that that response is inadequate; it misses Anscombe’s point and obscures various aspects of Aristotle’s ethics, in particular his emphasis on friendship and human interconnectedness. This element of Aristotelianism was favoured by Midgley. By returning to Midgley, with the support of Aristotle, it is possible to find an alternative modern Aristotelianism in ethics.

For Aristotle, in making the deliberate choice to incorporate the extensive requirements of the young into the aims of one’s life, people realise their own good. In this paper I will argue that this is a promising way to think about the ethics of care and parenting. Modern theories, which focus on duty and obligation, direct our attention to conflicts of interests in our caring activities. Aristotle’s explanation, in contrast, explains how nurturing others not only develops a core part of the self but also lead to an appreciation of the value of interpersonal relationships.

Plato's Republic presents the characters of the philosopher and the tyrant as similar. Strongly focused by indiscriminate erotic motivation, both defy convention and lack familiar emotional responses, which make them appear to be mad. This essay argues that Plato put forward these parallels partly in order to defend Socrates from the charge of corrupting the young, partly to present a possible way to overthrow the current regime and partly to show the ineffectiveness of democracy. The very best leaders may look like tyrants; it is only through proper philosophical education that their true natures can be discerned.

Given that they are chance events, there can be no scientific demonstration or knowledge of monsters. There are still, however, many recognizable elements of scientific explanation in Aristotle's Generation of Animals Book IV chapter 4. What happens in cases of monsters and deformities occurs in the process of generation, and there is much that we can know scientifically about this process—working from the animal’s essential attributes outward to factors that influence these processes. In particular, we find Aristotle looking for and investigating whether “for the most part” (FMP) correlations are causally relevant and linked to essence. Even though the birth of monsters is scientifically inexplicable, the features of animals that tend to produce them can be known about. I will explain how it is that producing more than one offspring per birth is a knowable feature of a kind. This feature, along with others, can then give us a much better grasp on what happens in particular instances of monstrous birth.

Aristotle's account of female nature has received mostly negative treatment, emphasising what he says females cannot do. Building on recent research, this book comprehensively revises such readings, setting out the complex and positive role played by the female in Aristotle's thought with a particular focus on the longest surviving treatise on reproduction in the ancient corpus, the Generation of Animals. It provides new interpretations of the nature of Aristotle's sexism, his theory of male and female interaction in generation, and his account of inherited features. It also discusses a range of more general issues which can and should be re-examined in light of Aristotle's account of female animals: his methodology, hylomorphism, teleology and psychology. Aristotle on Female Animals will be valuable to all those interested in Aristotle's philosophy and the history of gender.

EVER SINCE BALME’S GROUNDBREAKING WORK on the subject, there has been substantial progress in our understanding of the importance of biology in Aristotle’s philosophy. Despite a certain reluctance to incorporate treatises on animals into the undergraduate curriculum, it is now inadvisable to avoid any reference to Aristotle’s biological work when discussing most aspects of his thought. The new tendency of scholarship on Aristotle’s biology employs various methodologies but, in the main, argues for the importance of Aristotle’s biological treatises on the basis of the assistance they might provide for understanding some of the more intractable problems in Aristotle’s thought.