BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

    Aristotle on generation and hereditary resemblance

    Connell, Sophia M. (2021) Aristotle on generation and hereditary resemblance. In: Connell, Sophia M. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Biology. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107197732. (In Press)

    [img] Text
    41841.pdf - Author's Accepted Manuscript
    Restricted to Repository staff only

    Download (259kB)

    Abstract

    This chapter provides an overview of the theories of generation and hereditary resemblance found in Aristotle’s work On the Generation of Animals. This treatise completes the project of explaining the development of the perfected living being, which the epigenetic process of embryological development aims for. Aristotle’s explanation of how a new animal comes into being fits to his four-causal scheme, by adding in the more specific principles, male and female. The opponent, thinks Aristotle, is wrong to think that the generative contributions of the parents (seed, sperma) derive from all parts of the body. Instead, what male and female contribute is the most refined nourishment that their bodies produce which is ready to become all the parts of the body. Male and female roles are then differentiated: the female provides this blood-derived product to serve as that material body (material cause) while the male’s seed is further refined so as to initiate and direct that development as the efficient cause. Aristotle also explains how it is that particular animals end up as male or female and come to resemble their blood relatives. The chapter ends by reflecting on Aristotle’s sexism in his theory of generation.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Book Section
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Depositing User: Sophia Connell
    Date Deposited: 18 Mar 2021 11:39
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 18:05
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/41841

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    1Download
    6 month trend
    195Hits

    Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

    Archive Staff Only (login required)

    Edit/View Item
    Edit/View Item