Journal of Philosophical Criticism

2017

June Journal of Philosophical Criticism

1 ISSN 2533-0675 Volume 1 Issue Volume olume 1 Issue 1 June 2017 ISSN 2533-0675

Journal of Philosophical Criticism Editor-in-chief Marcio Gimenes de Paula, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil

Associate Editor Catalina Elena Dobre, Anáhuac University, Mexico

Reviews Editor Álvaro Rodríguez Vázquez, The English School, Colombia

Editorial Committee Mitsy Barriga-Ramos, Free University of Berlin, Germany • María José Binetti, CONICET, Argentina • Àngel Puyol González, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain • Gordon Marino, St. Olaf College, USA • Athanasia Theodoropoulou, University of Athens, Greece • Aleksandra Zdravkovic Zistakis, Greek Philosophical Society, Greece • Alexander Zistakis, University of Athens, Greece

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Volume 1 Number 1 — June 2017

ARTICLES

Aristotle in the History of Sciences Pierre Pellegrin 3

The Concept of Justice in Greek Philosophy (Plato and Aristotle) Afifeh Hamedi 15

What Is Systems Biology Tasos Zisis 24

From Democritus to Early Christian Liturgy Karolina Kochanczyk - Boninska 37 Journal of Philosophical Criticism

Vol. 1, No. 1, 2017

Aristotle in the History of Sciences

Pierre Pellegrin

he problem I want to tackle is: to what extent should we consider Aristotle as a scientist in the modern sense of this term, and, consequently, to what extent should we include his works dealing with the special sciences in the history of thoseT sciences? Until recently, the main opposition between the French and the so-called Anglo- saxon traditions in the history of science was that between a continuist approach and a Bachelardian one. I still believe that Gaston Bachelard is basically right in thinking that there is a difference of nature, and not of degree, between pre- scientific thought and science itself. Even Bachelard’s most provocative claims —for instance that science has no parents— are substantially true. In the same way, I still consider the conception of the history of science as a cumulative process (i.e. an accumulation of discoveries made by the successive scientists, along with the idea that, in human history, human beings are always facing, roughly speaking, the same problems) is misleading. One of the most remarkable examples of this continuist conception has been that of my friend Alistair Crombie, a man of outstanding historical culture.

I think that this quarrel was settled, in favor of the Bachelardian side, when Thomas Kuhn published his Structure of scientific revolutions in 1962. Borowing from Alexandfre Koyré the concept of a “scientific revolution”, Kuhn, as everyone knows, introduced the notion of a paradigm shift, which rendered obsolete the cumulative model of the history of sciences. But Kuhn is not so JPC

much concerned with the birth of the sciences, as he is with their developments.

One of the tasks of philosophy today is certainly to make clear distinctions between things which appear to be alike but are in fact different. Just as it is not the case that every system of be- liefs is a religion (even if it appeals to one or several gods), in the same way, it is not the case that every systematic explanation of the world is a science.

Bachelard’s position is particularly strong on the rise of Galilean physics. As a Bachelardian, I still consider Galileo’s physics to be the first science, properly speaking, assuming that we leave aside two questions. The first is the difficult problem of Greek and Arabic mathematics. The second is the case of Arabic physicists. I think this second question is twofold: on the one hand, we find disciplines directly dependant on mathematics, like astronomy, optics and statics, one of the most prominent of these being that of Ibn al-Haytham. As we do in the case of the Greek math- ematicians (I have of course Archimedes especially in mind), these disciplines can be described as «applied mathematics». On the other hand, concerning physics properly speaking, I have the impression that Arabic physicists remained so to speak on the threshold of scientific physics, just as people like Jean Buridan also were.

According to Bachelard, the birth of physics was a sudden event, though prepared over a long period, precisely by people like Buridan. This is what Bachelard calls the «epistemological break». In the case of physics, Aristotelianism was a formidable obstacle to the development of this Galilean physics, and particularly Aristotle’s dynamics and cinematics, which were both founded on an impressive cosmology, and also refered to his psychology and his metaphysics. And as a Bachelardian, again, I continue to think that Aristotle’s physics cannot be included as such in the history of physics.

We should add that in the XVIIth century Aristotelianism is no longer the innovative and revolutionary doctrine it was in the XIIIth century. Instead of being suspect to the Catholic church (in 1277 the bishop of Paris Eugène Tempier had condemned several Aristotelian theses),

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Aristotle was the basis for philosophy teaching in religious colleges. This lasted until the beginning of the XIXth century.

When I began to work on Aristotle’s biological treatises, more than thirty years ago, I intended to apply this Bachelardian framework to biology. I had two main reasons for doing so. (i) It seemed to me that there was no good reason to think that biology was an exception to the Bachelardian schema. I have been reinforced in this opinion by several publications, and especially Robert Joly’s Le niveau de la science hippocratique, published in 1966.

(ii) because Aristotle himself includes his biology in his physics, and therefore made appli- cable to biology what was assumed to be the case for physics.

This is why, in my first publications, I insisted on the necessity of contrasting Aristotle’s biology with modern biology. First, I stressed the fact that Aristotle’s biology could not be considered outside of Aristotelianism as a whole (this means that the main Aristotelian concepts, such as substance, act, potentiality, definition, etc. may have a biological use, but not a biological sense). Second, I intended to show that the questions the natural philosophers of the XVIIth and XVII- Ith centuries were dealing with, were not questions Aristotle had in mind. To make this second point, I took the example of taxonomy. If there is no fixed classification of animals in Aristotle, the reason is not that Aristotle could not have achieved it, but that he had no interest in doing so. Roughly speaking, my intention was to illustrate the thesis of Georges Canguilhem according to which there is no precursor in the history of science.

Today I hold a more mitigated position, may be because I am aging...

In fact Aristotle’s corpus is not homogeneous from the point of view of modern science. To- day I want to consider three chapters of the Aristotelian theory: cosmology, physics and biology.

The cosmology of the De Cælo

Aristotle’s cosmology, as represented in the De Cælo, should obviously be considered a typ-

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ical pre-scientific theory according to Bachelard’s standards. Aristotle’s conception of a finite, spherical, eternal and perfect cosmos is not a scientific picture of the universe, but the answer to a metaphysical challenge, that of Parmenides, who believe that no being could proceed from a non- being (and no non-being from a being). The first philosophers, from Thales onward, had no objection to the idea that the cosmos as it was could be explained by the mere combination of primitive elements, such as earth, water, air and fire. Parmenides’ objection, if expressed in modern terms, is that negentropy, i.e. the constitution of more complex realities through the chance combinations of elements, cannot exist in the world. An external source of information is needed. Of course the creationist view we find in religions avoids such a dilemma, or rather transfers the dilemma to the problem of the origin of God.

That the universe is finite seems to be almost pleaonastic to Aristotle, for the

same word teleios, is used to signify «finitude» and «perfection». If the universe were not finite, it would not be perfect, and if not perfect, it would not be eternal. And if the universe is not eternal, we have to answer the question of its origin, a question Aristotle wants precisely to avoid... For Aristotle rules out the question of the origin of the universe, and, as such, breaks with cosmogony and becomes the first of the cosmologists. In such a view, there is no need to describe the way the components of the universe originally combined together or to imagine a final con- flagration of the world.

This way of considering the universe seems, at first sight, consistent with a scientific- ap proach, because it rules out the metaphysical questions that were traditionally attached to the study of the cosmos. To let aside the questions that are out of reach (the origin of the universe) and to focus on the questions we are able to answer, at least partially (the disposition of celestial bodies, etc.), seems to be a scientific attitude.

In fact, the De Caelo is far from being one of the scientific treatises of astronomy which were available in the IVth centry BC. In answering a metaphysical challenge, the De Caelo remains

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itself a metaphysical work. Because of this metaphysical perspective, almost all the concepts and claims Aristotle had recourse to for picturing his universe had to be criticized and eliminated by the Galileans and their followers. Let us consider some of these claims.

(i) The finite universe is divided into two quite different zones, namely the supra-lunar and the sub-lunar. These regions are subject to different «laws»: the supra-lunar region being governed by an absolute regularity, whereas the sublunary region is more stochastic. In the sublunary, one finds several kinds of motions (local motion, qualitative changes, quantitative change, generation and corruption), whereas in the supra-lunar there is only local motions, and more precisely circular uniform motions.

(ii) Matter is not the same in the two regions; the supra lunar is composed of a special kind of matter, the aither, which has as its unique property to be moved in a circle. The celestial bodies (stars and planets) are made of this matter, as is the space between them, since there is no void in Aristotle’s universe. The matter of the sub-lunar is made of the four elements.

(iii) The directions of the universe are absolute: there are high/low, forward/ backward, right/ left regions in the universe. There are also absolute properties of the mobiles: things composed of earth (like stone or metal) are absolutely heavy and tend toward the center of the universe (which is also the center of the Earth, as the Earth is immobile at the center of the world), and things composed of fire (like smoke) are absolutely light and tend toward the high of the sublunar region of the universe, i.e. the orbit of the Moon.

(iv) Motions themselves are divided in two kinds: natural motions of mobiles tending toward their natural place (the center of the Earth for heavy things, the celestial region for light things), and motions contrary to nature, as when one throws a stone upward.

All these concepts and these ideas had to be abandonned by modern science, which advocates a unified conception of a boundless universe in which the same laws apply everywhere, and in which nothing is «against nature». The final blow was probably been the replacement of an

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astronomical system entirely based on spheres by Kepler’s elliptical model.

Such an impressive cosmological conception cannot be considered merely as an obstacle to the rise of a scientific approach to the physical and astronomical worlds. On the other hand, we can easily understand why the Aristotelian picture of the universe was accepted by the muslim and, later, christian medieval theologians and philosophers. Aristotle’s cosmology may even be considered a virtually perfect example of what Bachelard calls a pre-scientific intellectual construction, as described in La Formation de l’esprit scientifique. For example, the idea that the circle and the sphere are perfect figures, and, therefore, that the universe must be spherical and its motions circular, otherwise it would not be perfect, is typical of a pre-scientific way of thinking. That is why an anthropological approach to this kind of cosmology is justified, even if such an -ap proach is not very popular among the historians of philosophy.

Aristotle’s physics

Concerning the Physics, the situation is quite different and more ambiguous. For, Aristotle’s physics, as I said before, does not belong to the history of physics. The Physics in eight books is basically devoted to the study of motion. This also should be related to a philosophical background. According to Aristotle, «physical science» (physikè epistèmè) is the theoretical science of beings having an internal principle of change. This makes living beings, and in particular, animals, the paradeigmatic example of a physical object. There is no doubt that such a view, which attributes a soul to physical phenomena, was an obstacle to the formation of modern physics. The definition of motion as the actualisation of some potentiality in certain circumstances was also an answer to Parmenides.

Aristotle’s position must be properly understood. On the one hand, he, like Plato before him, accepts the Parmenidian requisit that there can be no science except of immutable objects. On the other hand, Aristotle wants to establish a physics, i.e. a science of changing realities. I do not want here to explain how Aristotle tackles and solves this contradiction. My purpose is certainly not to

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deal with this very interesting question in detail. I just want to stress that, here again, as in cosmology, Parmenides is at the origin of Aristotle’s motivation for the development of his physics. In addition, I would like to remind you three of the main features of Aristotle’s physics, which show without any doubt that this «natural science» cannot be considered a physics in a modern sense.

(i) Aristotle’s physics has often been said to be «empiricist», a term which is certainly an in- appropriate one. Yet, what nobody can contest, is that, according to Aristotle, our senses provide us with an adequate image of the external world. Contrary to Plato, Aristotle thinks that knowledge acquired through the senses is not a fake or second hand knowledge, but a real one. This is based on his teleological approach to nature. Man being the most perfect («the most natural») of the animals, Nature has provided him with the tools for grasping the real properties of the world. This is one of the side-effects of the perfection of Nature. This confidence in sense perception, which makes Aristotelianism agree with the common sense, has probably been the most difficult obstacle to overcome for modern physicists. Modern physics has been founded against our per- ceptual certitude and against the common sense. Just remember Descartes in his Principles of Philosophy (II,3): «that our senses do not teach us the nature of the things, but to what extent they are useful or harmful to us».

(ii) Aristotle’s physics is basically qualitative, as it describes the processes of the actualization of qualities. This is consistent with the first point, as it is qualitites that are perceived. Some attempts to introduce some proportions to the description, for instance, of some local motions, do not fundamentally modify this picture. Aristotle’s division of the sciences reinforce this qualitative tendency of the physics: as mathematics and physics consider objects different in kind, there is no cooperation, or a very limited one, between these two sciences. Modern physics, on the contrary, has been from the beginning a mathematical physics.

(iii) Aristotle’s physics is, so to speak, «substantive», i.e. it intends to describe the avatars of substances, which successively receive various determinations. It is an etiological physics rather than a legal one.

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But even if Aristotle’s physics does not belong as such to the history of physics, it may be connected to modern physics at least in two ways.

The first way might be also to some extent apply to Aristotelian cosmology, but is more obvi- ons in the case of physics. Aristotle’s physics has been a part of the controversies among physicists themselves. Galileo considered Aristotle as a scientific interlocutor, for instance in his Dialogue on two great world systems in which Simplicio (simple minded!) is the supporter of the Aristote- lian system. In fact, it is not one and the same thing to say that Descartes’ metaphysics is a reaction against Aristotle’s metaphysics, and to say that Galileo’s (and also Descartes’) physics is a reaction against Aristotle’s physics, because Aristotle’s and Descartes’ metaphysics belong to one and the same family, which is not the case for their physics. Aristotle’s physics is de facto included in the history of physics as the system against which Galileo builds up his own conception, because Ar- istotle’s system has been a provider of physical problems.

Let me take an example, that of heaviness. As I said earlier, according to Aristotle, the bodies made of earth are heavy and tend towards the centre of the universe, i.e. the centre of the earth. Now, there are two different conceptions of heaviness. One is that of heaviness as weight, i.e. a relative one: a given volume of wood is lighter or less heavy than the same volume of steel. This conception was known to Aristotle, as he criticizes it, but his own conception is an absolute one: in no way can earth be less light than fire, because earth is absolutely heavy and in no way light, and therefore in no way «less light».

Now, there are two ways in which one may criticize Aristotle’s theory of heaviness. (i) One could show that such a conception is based on metaphysical and cosmological premisses; this entails that this conception means nothing outside of a philosophical system. The problems we then face, are the problems related to the plurality of philosophical systems and their pretension to truth.

(ii) One could show, as Galileo did, that such a conception is incompatible with a scientific

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dynamics. In this way, Aristotle’s conception belongs to the history of sciences and should be taken into account by the philosophy of science.

But, let me insist on this, the question of the nature of heaviness is a scientific question adressed to modern scientist, whereas the question of the Aristotelian definition of motion, as an actualization of some potentiality, is not.

The second way is this. One can find, within Aristotle’s physics, some «scientific pockets». Let us consider, for instance, the «law» of the falling bodies. The background is Aristotle’s criticism of Atomism and his support for a continuist conception of change. Aristotle’s «law» according to which the distance covered by a falling body is equal to the product of its mass and the time divided by the density of the medium is false. In the same way, Aristotle’s theory of projectiles, even if it includes a metaphysical concept such as that of the «horror vacui», is a dynamic theory which is false and not a fake dynamic theory. On the other hand, Aristotle’s theory of substantial being, or his description of the Prime mover cannot simply be false. Falsity is a privilege of science. I dont think one can express in English the distinction we have in French between «une théorie fausse» and «une fausse théorie». But you understand what I mean.

Therefore, we should abandon a too integrist version of Bachelardism: not only is there an intellectual background from which Galilean science comes to be (and Bachelard would not deny this point), but we must also acknowledge that Aristotle’s physics provided Galilean physics with scientific problems. This last point is categorically anti-Bachelardian, as it makes obvious that science is not absolutely «without ancestors». A consequence of this, is that the philosophy of science is concerned with some, indeed many, of the analyses which can be found in Aristotle’s Physics.

Aristotle’s biology

But the most interesting aspect of the question I am dealing with, i.e. the historical relationship between Aristotle and the history of science, is the aspect related to biology. This is also a field about which I have radically changed my mind.

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Of course, Aristotle’s biology is shaped out by a metaphysical framework, just as the Aris- totelian physics is. And, of course, the biological texts have to be read in relation to the rest of the Aristotelian corpus. But when Cuvier says that Aristole «left only a small task for later zoologists», he is basically right. For Aristotle’s biology has a relation to modern biology which is quite different from the relationship between Aristotelian physics and modern physics.

Some of the fundamental concepts of Aristotle’s biology may have a metaphysical use, but they do not radically depend on metaphysics.

An interesting example of this, is the question of the unity of the bodily structure of animals. Of course the fact that animals that are apparently different, are in fact, to some extent, identical, has certain metaphysical implications: it makes obvious the skill of the final cause in nature. Aris- totle’s doctrine of the One, as developed in the 10th book of the Metaphysics, is crucial vis-à-vis Platonism. But this doctrine of the unity of structure is also a scientific one, in the proper sense of the term, namely a way of making the diversity of living beings intelligible. The move from animals to parts of animals has the same purpose. For we know that the primary object of Aris- totle’s biology is not animals as wholes —as in the case of Buffon, for instance—, but the parts of animals.

This may be compared with a modern situation. At the beginning of the XIXth century, there was a controversy beetween Georges Cuvier and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire about the «unité de plan» of the animals. When Georges Cuvier mentions four different kinds of structure among animals, without any further justification, he acts like a scientist because he relies on observation. But when Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire claims that there is one and only one structure common to all animals, he is a metaphysician, because he argues on the ground of some kind of perfection of nature. Aristotle, the philosopher who insisted more than anyone else on the perfection of nature, nevetheless obviously follows the same path as Cuvier (or rather Cuvier follows Aristotle...), when, for instance, he distinguishes four kinds of bloodless animals: insects, crustacea, molluscs, animals with a shell. This is what he has observed, and his flexible notion of

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«analogy» prevents him from adopting a metaphysical point of view.

My second example will be that of teleology. Against the Atomists, Aristotle, among other philosophers, developped the idea that there are goals in nature, and that things cannot be explained just as outcomes of automatic interrelations of material elements. But Aristotle’s teleology, at least in his biological treatises, is not just a specific version of such a metaphysical position. Ba- sically the picture is this: within the boundaries of physical and chemical constraints that cannot be ignored or modified (an animal has more or less earthy matter for instance), nature has to find a way to maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages of a living organism. We find here a concept of adaptation completely separated from any metaphysical basis.

Equipped in such a way, any animal species will be able to survive for ever, just as it has ex- isted in an eternal past. This is required by Aristotle’s conception of an eternal universe.

We should notice that this way of considering the ratio between advantages and disadvantages leaves room for very rich and acute analyses of the situation of animals. Aristotle is perfecly aware that animals have to face many difficulties due to their bodily structure, the characteristics of their milieu, their relationship with other living beings, etc. To claim that any animal species must be perfect, because the entire universe is perfect, is just to say that nature provided all species with means sufficient for overcoming these difficulties. Such a flexible conception of animal- per fection allows for accurate biological descriptions, which are not available to the naive teleologists like Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.

Aristotle’s teleology is a way to recognize the specificity of living beings and, consequently, the autonomy of biology. In the history of biological science we can see an endless fight between reductionism and what has been called «vitalism». «Reductionism» is the proper term to characterize the conception according to which biology is just an application in a circumscribed do- main—that of living beings— of a more general and all-embracing science. This is Descartes’ position in his theory of the «animaux machines», but this was also Plato’s position, since dialectic, in

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the Republic, is the science of everything. According to Aristotle, on the contrary, all the sciences are not just branches of a single tree, as they are for Plato or Descartes. Mathematics and biology, for example, are sciences which are different in kind, as I said earlier. According to Aristotle, biology is irreducible to any other science, a sign of this, being that material components of living beings left to themselves would never be able to constitute a living organism, or, to consider the epistemological version of this, living organisms are not entirely explicable without final causes. Aristotle provided all the vitalists who came after him with theoretical weapons to defend the specificity of the object of biology against attempts at reductionism.

Let me give the last word to my master Georges Canguilhem. In his famous article «Le vivant et son milieu», relying on the analysis by von Uexkull of the tick and of Kurt Goldstein’s Der Aufbau des Organismus, Canguilhem contrasts the world of human beings as a living beings and the world of human beings as a scientists. «The milieu that is proper to man is the world of his perception, that is to say the field of his practical experience in which his actions, oriented and regulated by values that are immanent to his tendencies, carve out certain objects, situate them relative to each other and all of them in relation to himself. This occurs in such a way that the environment he is supposed to be reacting to finds itself originally centered in and by him.» (p. 152). On the contrary, «the essential function of science is to devaluate the qualities of objects that make up the milieu proper to man. (...) Sensory data are disqualified, quantified, and identified» (p.153). By «science», Canguilhem here means «physical science». These are precisely the conditions of the birth of physics as described by Bachelard. But what about the living being that is itself the object of science?

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The Concept Of Justice In Greek Philosophy (Plato And Aristotle)

Afifeh Hamedi

1. Introduction

ustice has been one of the important issues in the history of philosophy. The Greek conception of justice was the virtue of the soul and action. To both Plato and Aris- totle, justice meant goodness as well as willingness to obey laws. It connoted corre- spondenceJ of rights and duties. Justice was the ideal of perfection in human relationships. To Plato, “justice was one of the highest of virtues .(bhandari,2002) Justice to the Greeks, was the spirit which animated men in the proper discharge of their duties. The promo- tion of balance and harmony in thought and action was pre-eminently social in character.

“The Greeks were devoted to their laws partly because of the belief in their superhuman origin and partly because the general principles embodying the law were believed to be perfect and permanent and not subject to change at the will of the people. Nature was the source of law and the duty of the state was ordinarily considered to be the application rather than the creation of the law. Law, to the Greeks, was moral because it was natural and, therefore, it constituted the cement of the city-state. Law was the same for all and, therefore, in a way, it meant freedom. Obe- dience to laws was an essential element in the Hellenic conception of liberty.To the Greeks, “the city-state was both a church as well as a political institution, and its end was to promote among its citizens goodness and justice, the latter representing an ideal perfection in human relationships. JPC

(Bhandari,2002) This part deals with the theories of Plato and Aristotle as follows:

2. Plato’s theory of Justice

Plato of Athens born of a noble family, about 427, was a pupil of Socrates and the oldest Greek Philosopher. The chief source of inspiration for Plato was Socrates. One of the most important questions of Socrates, was about the nature of justice. After Socrates, “Plato, also regarded justice as the true principle of social life. And he has named his most important work. Republic, as a discussion on justice. Dr. Barker, therefore, has pointed out that “Justice is the hinge of his thought. (Barker,1952) In his contemporary world Plato saw states everywhere cities so divided that their citizens stood “in the state and posture of gladiators” against one another. He saw un- righteousness rampant and injustice enthroned. He saw ignorance supreme and parading up and down in the guise of knowledge .(Wayper,1954) Thinking mainly of the Athenian democracy in which he lived and at the hands of which Socrates had been killed, he found the contemporary politics of his day dominated by two things: One was the ignorance and the other was a political selfishness which divided every cityintotwohostilecities.“Tocreateefficiencyintheplaceofamateur incompetence to replace selfishness and civil discord by harmony ,these are therefore, his aims, and specialization and unification are, therefore, his watchwords. To these two aims ,the political teaching of the Republic is addressed”.(Barker,1952) The far-seeing eyes of the philosopher could foresee that any plan for perfecting the city-state will not be complete unless it meets incompetence and factionalism, which were the two fundamental political evils of the day.(Sabin,1949) Plato found in justice the remedy for curing these evils.

The main argument of the Republic is a sustained search after the location and the nature of justice. Plato follows this search with the help of the method of elimination. He discovers and locates justice with the help of his ideal state. He reviews the various theories of justice representing various stages in the development of the conceptions of justice and morality, and finally gives his own. According to Plato, justice is that in individual life, different parts of soul are placed in

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their proper place, and in social life, each individual and each class is placed in its proper place. Plato believed that the human nature is made from, wisdom, courage, and appetite. And each class according to prevalence of one of this capacities, places in the social and moral hierarchy. Plato’s justice does not state a conception of rights but of duties through it is identical with true liberty. Justice is a quality – an indispensable quality of moral life. It is condition of the individual and of the state and the ideal state is the visible embodiment of justice. The state is the reality of which justice is the idea.

To Plate, “Justice, like the ideal state, therefore, it demands division of society into three classes representing the elements of reason, spirit and appetite, one man, one work, on the basis of functional specialization, a state-regulated scheme of education, the rule of philosopher–rulers and their emancipation from domestic and economic worries by a system of communism, and emancipation of women and their equality with men. Plato’s concept of justice is based on the submergence of the individual in the society. It refers to the whole duty of man and not merely his legal duties”.(Bhandari,2002) Plato in his theory of state mentions that there are five types of political organizations: aristocracy, the rule of the best; timocracy, in which the rulers are motivated by honour; oligarchy, in which the rulers seek wealth; democracy, the rule of the masses; tyranny, the rule of one man advancing solely his own selfish interests.

In the Republic Plato gives an outline of what he regards as the Ideal state. It

is a form of intellectual aristocracy. The state is the individual writ large. On the analogy of the tripartite division of the soul, society is stratified into three classes, the rulers, the auxiliary, and the artisans, each class having its own specific virtue: the rulers wisdom, the auxiliary valour, and the artisans self-restraint and willing obedience. To keep people contented in their respec- tie classes the state would have to propagate “a royal lie” that God has created human beings of three kinds: the best are made of gold, the second are made of silver, and the common herd of brass or iron, the first fit to be guardians, the second warriors, and the rest manual workers.(Sha- rif,2001) “These three classes, working in proper correlation, will insure the maximum of well-

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being throughout the state. Every member of the community must be assigned to the class for which he proves himself best fitted. Thus , a perfect harmony and unity will characterize both the state and every person in it”.(Dunning,1966) Plato says in this field:

“Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not, you remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the state, that one man should practice one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted; now justice is this principle or a part of it. Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only.”(Plato)

In his theory of Ethics, Plato held that the soul is in essence rational and immortal. The world of true beings, the world of ideas, is the source of all its goodness. The body is material and is the ground of all-evil. It is only a temporary prison house. Release from the body and contemplation of the beautiful ream of ideas, is the ultimate goal of life. The embodied soul is wise if reason rules all its impulses. It is brave if its spirited part aids and obeys the rational part, temperate, if both spirit and appetite obey the dictates of reason, and just. If all the three parts perform their respective functions in unison. The idea of this life is achieved when a man is wise, brave, temperate, and just. The highest good of life is the harmony of the soul which is attained by the exercise of all the four virtues, wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, under the guidance of reason. The greatest happiness attends the life that achieves the highest good and contemplates the highest ideas. (Sharif,2001)

For Plato, justice is the fundamental virtue, mother of the virtues belonging to each of the three souls. For the intelligence it consists in the correctness of thought; for the will, in courage for the sensibility, in temperance. Wisdom is the justice of the mind; courage, the justice of the heart; temperance, the justice of the senses. Piety is justice in our relation with the Deity; it is syn- onymous with justice in general. 17 Man must be educated in order to reach justice and through it to become like God. Justice is realized only in the collective man or in the state. In order that the collective man or the state may form a real unity or an individual on the large scale, particular interests must be merged in the general interest, the family must be absorbed in the state, the

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individual must cease to be a proprietor. Henceforth, the children belong to the state only, which forms one large family. The state is the father of the children; the state also educates them.(We- ber,200)

Justice, to Plato, has a moral rather than legal content. It has its individual and social as- pects. Justice is a principle of non-interference, which keeps within proper bounds the various classes of society, various individuals of each class and various elements in an individual’s soul. It is a principle of functional specialization, which moves everyone to make a specialized contribution to society. Specialization leads to efficiency. Justice is architectonic and keeps other virtues in harmonious relationship with each other. It permeates and integrates the other virtues of wisdom, courage and self-control and keeps them within proper bounds. As such, justice is the bond that holds the society together.(Bhandari,2002)

3. Aristotle’s Theory of Justice

Aristotle was born at Stagira in Thrace in 384 B.C. and he died in 322. He was the greatest of Plato’s disciples and he took his inspiration on many things from his celebrated teacher.Aristo- tle believed, like his master, Plato, that justice is the very essence of the state, and that no polity can endure for a long time unless it is founded on a right scheme of justice. It is with this considera- tion in view that Aristotle proceeds to set forth his theory of justice. The theory, however, was not developed by him in isolation. The Republic of Plato serves as a great guide Generally, Aristotle believes that every things have especial aim and man’s especial aim is to reach the real happiness. He sat the concept of human happiness basis of his discussion, and explains the concept of justice on the basis of individual life- He says in this field:

Justice is relative to persons, and a justice distribution is one in which the relative values of the things given correspond to those of the persons receiving. (Aristotle,1980) According to Ar- istotle, justice in individual is the harmony in the human soul, and in the society is equality and proportion in the enjoyment of values. In the Aristotle’s political philosophy, essential criterion

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of justice is treating equals equally and un-equals unequally but in proportion to their relevant differences. He says in his politics: “In all sciences and arts the end is a good, and especially and above all in the highest of all – this is the political science of which the good is justice. In other words, the common interest. All men think justice to be a sort of equality; and to a certain extent they agree in the philosophical distinctions which have been laid down by us about Ethics. For they admit that justice is a thing having relation to persons, and that equals ought to have equality. However there still remains a question – equality or inequality of what? Here is a difficulty which the political philosopher has to resolve”.(Aristotle,1953) Justice, to Aristotle as to Plato, is virtue in action. Justice means that every member of a community should fulfill his moral obligation towards the fellow-members of his community.

Justice in the political sense, has two divisions : 1. distributive justice and 2. corrective justice. Corrective justice is concerned with voluntary commercial transactions like sale, hire furnishing of security, etc., and other things like aggression on property and life, honour and freedom.”(Bhandari) Distributive justice consist in proper allocation to each person according to his worth or deserts. This type of justice relates primarily but not exclusively to political privileges. From this point of view, each type of political organization has its own standard of worth and, therefore, of distributive justice. In a democracy, the standard of worth is free birth; in an oligarchy it is riches, in aristocracy of birth it is descent while in true aristocracy it is virtue. “Distributive justice assigns to every man his due according to his contributions to the society. It minimizes strife and confusion by countering inequality of the equals or the equality of the un-equals. Aristotelian distributive justice is, thus, the other name of proportionate equality i.e., a man’s rights, duties and rewards should correspond to his merit and social contribution.”(Ibid) In the politics of Aristotle, the first natural community for him is the family, which, when complete, consists of father, wife, children, and slaves. The family is based on two relations: the relation between man and woman and that between master and slave, both of which are considered to be natural. To all members of the family the father is an absolute ruler, but he should rule the slaves with mildness, the wife as a free member of the community, and children by right of affection and seniority.(Aristotle,1953) The

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most comprehensive human society is the state. The aim of the state is to produce good citizens, individuals living a virtuous and happy life. As the highest virtues are intellectual, it is the duty of the state not to create warriors, but men capable of making the right use of peace, which is condu- cive to intellectual activity. The state should be strong enough to protect itself. The state should be wage no wars except in self-defence or to subjugate natural slaves, i.e., inferior people. The Greeks combine courage with culture and are therefore, superior people; and the superior people are alone justified in extending their rule over those who are inferior.(Sharif )

The treatment given to citizen should be determined by the differences of capability, property, birth, and freedom. Equals should be treated as equals and un equals as un equals. Although the individual citizen is prior to the state in point of time, the state is prior to the individual in signifi- cance, for the whole is prior to its parts. As man is a social animal, the natural aim of the individual is to live in society. The rational aim of society is the happiness of man. So in a rational society ,the interest of the individual and the state are harmonized.To Aristotle, the worth of the individual citizens depends on the kinds of government under which they are brought up. A government is good when it aims at the good of the whole community, bad when it cares only for itself. “there are three forms of good government (monarchy, aristocracy, and polity), and three forms of bad government (tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy), according as the rule is of one man, of a few, or of many. The best form of government is a monarchy in which the ruler is a man of intellectual eminence and moral worth. Next best is aristocracy in which there are a few persons possessed of such qualities”.There is therefore a difference between the rule of the best (aristocracy) and of the richest (oligarchy), since the best are likely to have only moderate fortunes. There is also a difference between democracy and polity, in addition to the ethical difference in the government, for what Aristotle calls polity retains some oligarchic elements. But between monarchy and tyranny the only difference is ethical. Aristotle believes that monarchy is better than polity. But the corruption of the best is worst; therefore tyranny is worse than oligarchy, and oligarchy than democracy. In this way Aristotle arrives at a qualified defence of democracy; for most actual governments are bad, and therefore, among actual government, democracies tend to be the best.Democracy,

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Aristotle says, arises from the belief that men who are equally free should be equal in all respects; oligarchy, from the fact that men who are superior in some respect claim too much. Both have a kind of justice, but not the best kind.(Russel,1961) In the theory of mortality Aristotle raises the question of the good for man- the good which is the end of all human ends.(Aristotle). Accord- ing to Aristotle, the ultimate end of man is happiness which is an activity of the soul. Aristotle says that Plato was right in dividing the soul into two parts, one rational, and the other irrational. The irrational part itself he divides into the vegetative and the appetitive.(Russel,1961) From this definition of happiness it follows that it is not the same thing as pleasure. Pleasure is only beauty is the accompaniment of the perfect physical development of youth. The highest pleasure attends the highest happiness. While in all its degrees is good, pleasure may be good or bad according as it accompanies good or bad activities.

The ethical goal of happiness cannot be attained without some non-ethical prerequisites, such as the proper discharge of mental and bodily functions and the satisfaction of economic needs. Human happiness manifests itself in two ways: first in the habitual subordination of the animal side of man’s nature, his appetites, desires, and passions, to rational rule; secondly, in the exercise of reason in the search for knowledge and contemplation of truth. In the former case, happiness expresses itself in moral virtues (courage, temperance, liberality, magnanimity, love of honour, mildness, truthfulness, friendship, and the highest of them all, justice). In the latter case, it manifests itself in intellectual virtues which are of two types: 1. those of theoretical reason which we use in our inquiry in the nature of what is necessary and in the intuitive apprehension of truth (science and reason), and 2. those of practical reason by which we exercise deliberation in such matters as are possible for us to change (art and practical wisdom). 32 Aristotle is a pronounced supporter of the freedom of will. He criticized Socrates because the latter’s theory of virtue prac- tically amounts to a denial of freedom. According to Socrates, whoever thinks right must neces- sarily do right. But this is equivalent to denying a man’s power to choose evil. And if he cannot choose evil, he cannot choose good. Aristotle believed, on the contrary, that, “man has the choice of good and evil. The doctrine of Socrates makes all actions involuntary. But in Aristotle’s idea

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only actions performed under forcible compulsion are involuntary. Aristotle did not, however, consider the special difficulties in the theory of free will which in modern times have made it one of the most theories of all philosophical problems”.(Stace,1962)

4. Conclusion

Aristotle’s and Plato’s justice, in fact, both are complementary to each other, but they differ in many fundamental respects from each other. For example, Aristotelian justice lays emphasis on a system of rights, while Platonic justice attaches more importance to duties. The Aristotelian justice is based, as it were, on the principle that “everyone should have his own”. The Platonic justice, on the contrary, is based on the principle of “every one should do his own”. The former, therefore, is a system of rights but the latter is a system of duties. Also Aristotelian justice establishes equality between different members of the state, while the Platonic justice establishes a hierarchy of classes. According to this justice, citizens are divided into three classes, each of which performs a particular set of functions. Every citizen is bound to do his duties for which he is called as an organ of the state. On the other hand, the Aristotelian justice is based on a classification of complete and particular justice. Plato does not attempt any such classification. His justice rests on three different elements of the human soul-reason, spirit and appetite. However in spite of this difference, there is a ground of common agreement also. The aim of both the philosophers is to find out a principle of capacity through which unity, harmony, virtue and happiness can be established in the society. The purpose of both is to give every citizen his due in accordance with his capacity or nature. Thus, justice in the case of both can be regarded as distributive in character. In both cases, justice is ultimately functional and teleological, and is not merely a legal, but also a moral principle.

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References

Aristotle (1953) Politics, Translated by Jowett, London, Reprinted Oxford At the Clarendon Press, pp.26- 125.

Aristotle,(1980) The Nicomachean Ethics, Translated by Commentaries and Glossary by Hip- pocrats G. Apostle, D. Redial Publishing, London, Book E, 5.

Barker, E.,(1952) Greek Political Theory- Plato and His Predecessors, London, 4th edition, pp.149- 153.

Bhandari, D.R.,(2002) Reprint History of European Political Philosophy, Bangalore, Bappco, the Bangalore Press, pp. 5-54.

Dunning, W.A.(1966) Political Theories-Ancient and Medieval, Allahabad, Copyright, Vol. 1, pp. 28-29.

Plato’s Republic, Jowett’s Translation, The Modern Library, New York, pp. 147- 148.

Russell, Bertrand,(1961) History of Western Philosophy, pp.185-201.

Sabin, G.H.(1949) A History of Political Theory. 3rd edition, p. 52.

Sharif, M.M.,(2001) History of Muslim Philosophy, Delhi, Adam Publishers, Vol.

1, pp. 98-104.

Stace, W.T.,(1962) A Critical History of Greek Philosophy, London, Macmillan, p.

320.

Wayper, C.L.(1954), Political Thought, England, 1st edition, p. 16.

Weber, Alferd,(2000) History of Philosophy, Indian, Translated by Frank. Thilly,

India, Surjeet Publication, 2nd Reprint, p. 73.

- 24 - Journal of Philosophical Criticism Vol. 1, No. 1, 2017

What Is Systems Biology

Tasos Zisis

ne of Biology’s ultimate goals is to understand function, as well as to grasp the principles that lie behind the development and sustainability of biological systems (Bruggeman & Westerhoff, 2006; Kitano, 2001). The biggest part Oof contemporary research has overtaken the reductionist-molecular approach, which has been the dominant trend for many decades, and now tries to reach a wider perspective, regarding the analysis of a biological structure or phenomenon. A growing number of contemporary researchers have started focusing on the explanation of biological data at the level of functional analysis. In this paper, we will try to disambiguate the relation between teleology, function and purpose in biological systems, and finally suggest that contemporary research trends in Biology are connected to the Aristotelian thought.

Biological systems are always systems within systems ( Jacob, 1974) and demonstrate structural complexity and historical contingency (Mitchell, 2002). Therefore, causation may be discriminated into multiple separate causes. Systems Biology deconstructs the component structures of a system, as well as the mechanisms behind them, so that the study of the whole becomes possible (Mitchell, 2002). As Weiss & Buchanan (2010) suggest, in systems thinking, it is the network of interactions of the whole that is functionally important, while a potential change in function within an organism is mostly based on change in gene usage, and not in gene sequence.

Biological systems are understood as a sophisticated and highly complex example of natural JPC

self-maintaining systems (Mossio et al., 2009). Systems Biology is considered a ground breaking new field in natural sciences, which aims to explain biological phenomena rather than just describe them. The Systems Biology approach tries to bring dynamics to the mechanics of a system. Among others, it aspires to achieve the “analysis of entirety rather than the entireness of analysis” (Huang & Wikswo, 2006). A distinctive characteristic of Systems Biology is the fact that it does not operate in a reductionist fashion. For example, it does not investigate individual genes or proteins one at a time. Instead, it studies the behavior and (inter)relations of all the components within a particular system, while it is functioning (Ideker et al., 2001). Thus, Systems Biology focuses on function, both as concept and as process. In one sentence, it offers an interpretation of biological phenomena as dynamic processes (Kohl et al., 2010).

1. How is Systems Biology related to Final Causation

Causation is an old idea, which becomes more and more complicated moving towards the centuries. The term ‘teleology’ was first used by the philosopher Christian Wolff in his Latin treatise of 1728, where he defined it “as indicating the part of natural philosophy that explains the ends, or purposes, of things” (Glasersfeld, 1990). However, there is a certain avoidance of the word teleology by contemporary Biologists, despite the fact that they often know the end state of a biological process. Philosophical objections against teleology share in common the fact that thinkers considered teleology to be a fuzzy and anthropocentric concept, which is problematic in its verifiability (Chase, 2011). However, although teleology was dramatically diminished, it was not completely absent from the 20th century’s reflection. While biologists and philosophers of Biology still talk about teleology, it is not always clear what they mean by this term (Koutroufinis, 2014).

Ernst Mayr (1961) writes that causation in Biology is discriminated into two general cat- egories: on the one hand it tries to answer how questions (functional etiology), while on the other hand it tries to answer why questions (evolutionary etiology). In this direction, Mayr (1961) promoted the division between proximate and ultimate causes, relating the former to the growth and

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function of a biological structure, and the later to the explanation of an organism’s coming to be as a product of evolution. He thus correlated the ultimate causes to the origin, explanation, and history of an organism. Ernst Mayr (1961) supported the idea of proximate and ultimate causes in Biology, giving examples from the field of ornithology in an attempt to analyze the differences between the former and the latter.

Nevertheless, contemporary biologists, such as Mayr, prefer the term ‘teleonomy’ in order to describe end-directedness without the potential metaphysical complications that the philosophical term teleology could carry along. Ernst Mayr stressed the role of function and purpose in biological phenomena. He suggested that while non-living matter is governed only by the laws of nature, often combined with random processes, when we are dealing with living matter, we are forced to keep in mind a concept called teleonomy (Mayr, 1997).

The term teleonomy was first introduced by Colin Pittendrigh and referred to what we may call “evolved purposiveness”. Teleonomy may have been a 1950s equivalent idea to what we today call self-organization. Nonetheless, broadly speaking, teleonomy is not too far away from the old Aristotelian teleology. In fact, we could imply that we are dealing with the same concept. As Mayr (1961) writes, a complete biological analysis needs to explain past events, foresee future events, and explain teleonomic (end directed) phenomena.

Similarly, Nikolaas Tinbergen, a Nobel prize winning ethologist, proposed an etiological system that consisted of four questions, which holds a clear analogy to the Aristotelian four cause system. Tinbergen’s four questions were set to analyze biological mechanisms in both a proximate and ultimate way. At their ultimate level, Tinbergen’s questions address, on the one hand a trait’s survival value through its phylogenetic history, and on the other hand its functional role in an organism’s environmental circumstances. Regarding finality, Hladký and Havlíček (2013) associate Tinbergen’s ultimate question of Function with the Aristotelian final cause.

The ‘causal problem’ may be considered as an ontological, and not a logical issue, since it cannot be reduced to logical terms, but can be analyzed with the help of formal reasoning (Wolk- enhauer, 2001). In the case of biological systems, causation may be a hopeful explanation of in-

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tentionality (Mitchell, 2002), which may be analyzed in multiple casues, in a way that the causal structure of a whole biological system can be studied without the deconstruction of its component structures and mechanisms. As Koons (1998) points out, the teleological properties of a system depend on its current internal organization, as well as on the general truths about causation and objective probability.

Mossio et al. (2009) stress the fact that if an etiological approach defines a

trait’s function in terms of its etiology, “it is no other than its causal history, given that the functions of a trait are past effects of that trait, which causally explain its current presence in a biological system”. Furthermore, Mossio et al. (2009) coincide the etiological approach with the issue of teleology as the central problem of a theory of functions. As Chediak (2011) writes: “the etiological approach to the concept of biological function, also called teleological or historical, aims to offer an explanation of the function, answering the question of why a trait, organ, biological system or behavior is present in the living organism to which it belongs, performing a functional role”. According to this etiological-historical view, natural selection is responsible for both the maintenance of a given trait, but also for its fixation (Chediak, 2011).

Causation in Systems Biology can be either bottom up or top down. The bottom up approach starts the analysis of a biological phenomenon or entity studying the lower biological structures, such as cells, genes, or proteins, and then tries to understand higher level functions (O’Malley & Dupre, 2005), while the top down approach starts its analysis with a panoramic view of a biological entity and moves towards its lower biological structures. In this second way, biological research deduces an organism’s higher functions (O’Malley & Dupre, 2005) to its parts and their function- ality by studying the whole (Kohl et al., 2010). This happens in the case of physiology, which bears similarities to reverse engineering (Kohl et al., 2010). Systems research combines the application of reductionist and integrative elements, concluding on the one hand on the identification and characterization of the parts, and on the other hand on the clarification of the interactions between its parts and the environment that keep the system alive (Kohl & Noble, 2009).

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2. Some Historical Landmarks on the History of Final Causation and Systems Biology

From the antiquity to the 16th and 17th centuries, and still today, we may hear the echo of the debate between two different worldviews. On the one hand there is the dynamic model of nature, introduced by Aristotle, while on the other hand, there is the atomic-deterministic model, which was strongly supported by Democritus, and many more ancient and modern thinkers. Mechanistic Biology, following the second path, suggests that the behavior of living organisms can be precisely predicted and determined, and therefore living beings are nothing more than complex machines (Trewavas, 2006).

Philosophical reflection before the 17th century was highly influenced by Aristotelian views (Trewavas, 2006). However, the development of experimental Physics and Biology during the 17th century put Aristotle in disfavor (Trewavas, 2006), and together constrained philosophical focus on the study of efficient causes (Hacker, 2007). Even 20th century’s Biology traded teleology for a mechanistic explanation of the universe.

The advocates of the mechanistic school of thought still struggle to answer the question of how a living system works, forgetting all about the question why it actually works the way it does (Gilson, 1984). For example, today’s prevalent (mechanistic) explanation of an organism’s morphology is confined to the analysis of the purposes served by the organism’s morphological features. However, this explanation is not causal, since it only explains what an organ or biological feature is for, and not how it came about, or how (through what causal processes) it fulfills its functions (Hacker, 2007).

The prevalence of efficient causation and the exclusion of finality from the natural sciences seems to be quite a strange development, since natural sciences by themselves neither refute nor establish final causation (Gilson, 1984). Aristotle rightly supported the notion that when some- one wants to know something, he has to know its causes, and not just describe it [Physics 184a 10-16]. Indeed, explaining the function of an organ or any other biological structure, based solely on mechanism, and without projecting natural teleology onto it, would be an insufficient effort

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(Gilson, 1984).

Besides the fact of the increasing hostility against teleology, it was in the 17th century’s mechanistic intellectual environment where final causation regained scientific attention, mostly in the fields of medicine and comparative anatomy. A good example of this trend is demonstrated in the work of William Harvey (1578- 1657), a physician who developed his thought in the Ar- istotelian spirit (Lennox & Kampourakis, 2013). Apart from being an Aristotelian thinker, the importance of William Harvey’s work lies in the fact that he is considered to be one of the fathers of Systems Biology (Auffray & Noble, 2009). Harvey pointed a teleological view of biological processes, such as growth and development, and understood the teleology of generation as a “coming to be for the sake of ” (Goldberg, 2012).

Apart from William Harvey, other notable historical antecedents of modern systems biology are considered to be Claude Bernard (1813-1878) and Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), founders of modern experimental medicine and genetics respectively. These thinkers stressed the functioning of biological systems through a combination of both experiment and modelling, two scientific methods that are considered as the hallmark of contemporary systems biology (Auffray & Noble, 2009). Claude Bernard in particular, also promoted Aristotelian thought (Gilson, 1984; Noble, 2008).

Teleological conceptions, as Gilson (1984) notes, remained utterly unchanged during the period between Aristotle and Claude Bernard. In fact, Darwin himself did not reject the idea of teleology, and in some cases used final causation to explain biological phenomena, such as the sexual dimorphism in the species Primula veris (Lennox & Kampourakis, 2013).

3. Aristotle’s position

Aristotle introduced the final cause in order to explain the complexity of biological phenomena, avoiding the mechanistic-deterministic ideas of the atomists, who tried to explain the natural world as a combination of basic material substances and chance (Hladký & Havlíček, 2013; Ross,

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1923). As Hladký & Havlíček (2013) suggest, Aristotle’s teleology is observable in the world and the living beings, and it is not imposed on the world “from above” (e.g. intelligent design), but emerges “from below”, as an activity of nature or as a contemporary thinker would say as a product of natural selection. For Aristotle, ‘what is best’ is the highest good, or in other words the ultimate form towards which, according to his teleology, the word is drawn (Glasersfeld, 1990). For Aris- totle, nature itself could be considered as a final cause, which answers the question “for the sake of which” a biological phenomenon occurs, and one could argue that a living organism is itself the final cause of its own processes of generation and development (Chase, 2011).

In contrast to Plato, who considered Mathematics to be the ultimate science, Aristotle fo- cused his attention on the natural word, becoming the founder of biological thought. While Plato uses the notion of teleology to explain the fulfillment of the intentions of a creator, Aristotle connects teleology with the usefulness of a biological structure by its possessor (Lennox & Kam- pourakis, 2013). Therefore, Lennox & Kampourakis (2013) suggest that Aristotle’s teleology is naturalistic.

Aristotle argued that every part of a living being has a certain position in order to fulfill a purpose (end). What we suggest is that this purpose could be taken as function. He gave an exceptional role to function, arguing that function precedes form. Nature, he writes, made the organs of an animal in order to serve a function, and not the function in order to serve the organs [Parts of Animals 694b 13-14]. Furthermore, Aristotle underlined that a part of a living body is such, only because it is a part of a living body, and has a certain function. A dead man’s hand has the same form with a living man’s hand, but is not a hand, since it does not serve the purpose a hand is supposed to serve. As Aristotle did 2.400 years ago, von Bertalanffy, in 1968, also realized that a physicochemical analysis of a biological structure is not sufficient for explaining whether it belongs to a living, a sick, or a dead organism.

Aristotle developed his thought trying to explain why living beings are as they are - i.e. have certain parts, develop and behave in particular ways (Lennox & Kampourakis, 2013). Aristotle put the end (telos) within the organism, calling natural those beings that have the internal prin-

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ciple of movement and constantly move towards an end, as long as they do not meet any obsta- cles [Physics 199b 15-17]. He believed that both natural beings and artifacts made by humans are constructed in a particular way which promotes their function. For example, in the Parts of Animals Aristotle compares nature with a doctor or a builder, who works with certain materials in order to accomplish his purpose - i.e. health or a house [Parts of Animals 639b 16-21]. James Lennox (2001) goes one step further, in terms of the primacy of function in Aristotle, suggesting that, for Aristotle, if two or more parts of an animal are made by the same material (e.g. earth), then perhaps the distribution of that material occurs according to certain functional priorities. Therefore, in Aristotle’s work, we might say that is the beginning of complex biophysics, which contains what we might call “Principle of Functional Priority” (Lennox, 2001). Even the whole body of a human being, according to Aristotle, exists in order to serve a purpose, which is to exist for the sake of the soul [Parts of Animals 645b 15-22].

4. Discussion

It is particularly interesting that this relatively new trend called Systems Biology, which goes beyond the strict mechanistic explanation of nature, has its theoretical roots in Aristotle. We would not be exaggerating saying that this is the rediscovery of Aristotle’s Biological thought after about four hundred years. Biologists eventually rediscovered Aristotle by noticing the importance of connectivity between the components of a living system, as well as the end-directedness of that system, when performing a particular task (Bothwell, 2006). What is different today, in relation to older periods in the History of the Sciences, and Biology in particular, is the availability of new technology and molecular knowledge, which makes it possible to thoroughly understand a living system (Kitano, 2001).

Aristotle proposed a teleological concept, which promoted the existence of purpose without design or natural selection, based solely on the notion of function (Hacker, 2007) and many centuries later, it was Darwin who made clear that natural selection can explain how purpose can evolve in life forms without design, through favoring advantageous adaptation (Hacker, 2007).

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Aristotle’s thought is clearly related to the views of Systems Biology, which focuses not only on predicting but also on explaining the function of a biological system. And on the other hand, function analysis in Biology is inextricably connected to the notion of teleology, even if teleology is often rejected by modern science (McLaughlin, 2002). In function analysis a part of a biological system is being studied in relation to its role in the whole system (McLaughlin, 2002). Systems Biology focuses on the function of biological systems and not on their structure.

The mechanistic explanation of nature does not imply teleological thinking, while the notion of teleology does not exclude mechanism (Gilson, 1984). In Aristotle’s biological works mechanistic and final causes coexist. The ancient thinker suggested the study of the parts in relation to the picture of the whole before contemporary Biology did. Moreover, Aristotle connected the purpose of an organ with its nature (Hacker, 2007).

The reason that 20th century Biology rejected teleology Hacker (2007) suggests is because it cannot disconnect purpose from design. However, the 20th century did not permanently delete teleological explanation from nature. Contemporary trends in Philosophy of Science, such as the work of Ilya Prigogine, have returned, with certain adjustments, to the idea of final causation (Chase, 2011).

It is interesting that Aristotle never claimed Empedocles’ mechanistic approach to be wrong, but only added to it a wider explanation of reality and biological phenomena (Gilson, 1984). Re- jection of teleology remains a problem today, since “we have not yet found something that can replace teleology, which we no longer want” (Gilson 1984).

As a concluding remark, we should note that all functional features of a complex biological system undoubtedly introduce a teleological dimension in the structure of explanation (Mossio et al., 2009), and as Kull et. al. (2009) suggest, teleological processes that are specially organized with respect to specific ends, are unique to living processes.

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- 36 - Journal of Philosophical Criticism Vol. 1, No. 1, 2017

From Democritus To Early Christian Li- turgy

Karolina Kochanczyk - Boninska

1. Introduction

lthough the microcosmic motif was broadly diffused in various traditions and cultures, in my paper I would like to focus on the Greek thought where the motif could be found from the very beginnings to Neoplatonic philosophers, andA Jewish and Christian thinkers. I would like to show how this common motif evolved, especially in interaction with Judaism and Christianity. The words “macrocosm “and” microcosm,” which could be found in Latin, French, German, Italian and English, are equivalents for the Greek term makros kosmos meaning “great world/ order/harmony”, and the other term mikros kosmos - “little world/order/harmony”. (Conger, p. XIII)

It is possible that the Ionian thinkers who introduced the idea of man understood as microcosm were influenced by the Near East. But it is difficult to find any definite proofs. (Allers, p. 337) Although the Ionian philosophers did not use the exact term, their understanding of the cosmic order and elements of the world were important for the development of the idea. We should mention Anaximander with his idea of the World Soul, as well as the Pythagorean philosophy because it is Pythagoras who is said to have first applied the term kosmos to describe the universe. In tradition we can find the ascription of the very term microcosm to Democritus (Diels-Kranz, 68 B 34) but the most beautiful definition is found in an anonymous Pythagorean philosopher JPC

quoted by Photius. (Reale, p. 131)

Pythagoras said that man was a microcosm, which means a compendium of the universe; not because, like other animals, even the least, he is constituted by the four elements, but because he contains all the powers of the cosmos. For the universe contains Gods, the four elements, animals and plants. All of these powers are contained in man. He has reason, which is a divine power; he has the nature of the elements, and the powers of moving, growing, and reproduction. (Photius, cod. 249, 440)

Despite of its obscure beginnings the idea of macrocosm and microcosm was widespread in Greek philosophy and it was quite carefully analyzed in studies concerning individual authors. The general development was systematized and explained, for example, by R. Allers who analyzed same relationships between microcosm and macrocosm in ancient treatises. He categorized the conceptions from the simplest ones to the more developed. The first group called “elementaristic” microcosm – the term that represents the idea that “man contains within his being all the elements of which the world consists” (Allers, p. 321-322). The next one is still rather simple and considers man “not only as mirroring the universe (...) by his composition, but also by duplicating the context and order of the prevailing in the maior mundus.” Allers calls this mode “structural microcosm” and presents two variations: cosmocentric (man mirrors the universe – e.g. in Philo of Alexandria, Nemesius of Emesa) and anthropocentric microcosmism (the world is enlarged man) (Allers, p. 322 - 323). An example of the latter may be found, for instance, in Plato’s Timaeus.

Allers presents also other concepts, for example “sociological” microcosmism which may be omitted in here, “symbolistic” microcosm which is strongly represented in mediaeval philosophy and was introduced by Philo of Alexandria and Christian writers who used symbolic interpretation of the Bible (Allers p. 323- 329). In this paper the symbolistic interpretation will be strongly represented as it was willingly used by Christian writers.

We leave out all astrological and magical inclinations and ideas but we should remember that they were marginal element of microcosmic idea. For Jewish and Christian authors it is nec-

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essary to bring together the idea of microcosm with the doctrine of creation. Starting with Philo of Alexandria we can find these two simultaneous ideas in philosophical and religious writings. Man as microcosm and man created ad imaginem et similititudinem Dei. This coexistence occurs particularly with the authors that are strongly influenced by Neo-Platonism: Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Nemesius of Emesa, Maximus the Confessor.

2. Philo of Alexandria

Philo of Alexandria (c. 25 BCE – c. 50 CE) was the first Jewish author who tried to combine Greek philosophy and biblical teaching. He carefully analyzed the biblical description of the creation of the world and gave his own allegorical interpretation. In his treatise Allegorical Interpreta- tion, Philo introduces the problem of double creation and links it with dual resemblance of man as he is simultaneously an image of God and of microcosm.

And God created man, taking a lump of clay from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life: and man became a living soul.” The races of men are two fold; for one is the heavenly man, and the other the earthly man. Now the heavenly man, as being born in the image of God, has no participation in any corruptible or earthlike essence. But the earthly man is made of loose material, which he calls a lump of clay. On which account he says, not that the heavenly man was made, but that he was fashioned according to the image of God; but the earthly man he calls a thing made, and not begotten by the maker. And we must consider that the man who was formed of earth, means the mind which is to be infused into the body, but which has not yet been so infused. And this mind would be really earthly and corruptible, if it were not that God had breathed into it the spirit of genuine life; for then it “exists,” and is no longer made into a soul; and its soul is not inactive, and incapable of proper formation, but a really intellectual and living one. “For man,” says Moses, “became a living soul.” (Philo of Alexandria, XII, 31-32)

Many times Philo calls man microcosm and micro heaven. He compares the bodily nature of man and certain parts of human body with individual elements of the visible universe. “Stone and wood are solid bodies and are to be compared to the bones of man, hairs and nails correspond

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to plants, and so on.” (Allers, p. 348)

Now that this has been premised we must also say, that the mind, while naked and free from the entanglement of the body (for our present discussion is about the mind, while it is as yet entangled in nothing) has many powers, namely, the possessive power, the progenitive power, the power of the soul, the power of reason, the power of comprehension, and part of others in- numerable both in their genus and species. Now the possessive power is common to it with other inanimate things, with sticks and stones, and it is shared by the things in us, which are like stones, namely, by our bones. And natural power extends also over plants: and there are parts in us which have some resemblance to plants, namely, our nails and our hair: and nature is a habit already put in motion, but the soul is a habit which has taken to itself, in addition, imagination and impetuos- ity; and this power also is possessed by man in common with the irrational animals; and our mind has something analogous to the soul of an irrational animal. (Philo of Alexandria, XII, 31-32)

First Christian writers borrowed the key intuitions from Philo but in each successive generation developed them in their own way, adding new intuitions and interpretations.

3. Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215) is one of the fathers who tried to harmonize Chris- tianity and Greek culture. And as one of the elements of Greek tradition was the idea of man understood as microcosm, he used it as a suitable one to underline the goodness of creation. Hu- man body is equally good as the whole created world, Clement underlines in his polemic with the Manicheans. Clement reminded also about the fact that a human being is not only the image of universe but also the image of God, and claimed that although men are made in the image of God, the image needs to be made like the archetype. (Osborn, p. 89)

O you who have from of old been images, but not completely like your model, I wish to cor- rect your likenesses of the archetype, so that you may become like me. (Clement of Alexandria, 120; I, 85, 8)

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4. Origen

Origen (184/185 – 253/254), the third author that may be linked with Alexandria, continued the ideas of his predecessors and when commenting on the first description of the creation of the world compared the universe to a human being. He also presented parts of the created world as the elements of human construction.

For the text says: And the water which is under heaven was gathered into gatherings and the dry land appeared. And God called the dry land earth, and gathering together of the water is allied seas. As therefore, the dry land (...) is now named “earth” in this manner also our bodies. (Origen, I, 2)

I think that if our mind has been enlightened by Christ, our sun, it is ordered afterword to bring forth from these waters which are in it “creeping creatures” and “birds which fly”, that is to bring out into open good or evil thoughts. (Origen, I, 7)

The most important question that Origen asked was how could man be simultaneously the image of the created world and the image of God. In fact, to be precise, Origen wrote about the image of Jesus Christ. For him a human being was somebody much more than only the image of the created world. He explained the idea using his protological vision, and we should remember that Origen distinguished two stages of the process of creation.

I see, however, something indeed more distinguished in the condition of man, which I do not find said elsewhere: “And God made man, according the image of God he made him”. We find this attributed neither to heave nor earth, nor the sun or moon. We do not understand, however, this man indeed whom Scripture says was made “according to the image of God” to be corporeal. For form of the body does not contain the image of God, nor is the corporal man said to be “made” but “formed” (....) But it is inner man, invisible, incorporeal, incorruptible, and immortal, which is made “according the image of God. (Origen, I, 13)

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As we may notice, Origens’ understanding of human body and corporality is not uncondi- tionally positive. Full affirmation of the physical condition of human beings would be introduced by later authors.

5. Nemesius of Emesa

Nemesius of Emesa (c. AD 390), known only for a single treatise De Natura Hominis, may be considered both a philosopher and a theologian. He was influenced by Origen, but even more by Neo-Platonic and Stoic philosophy. He claims, as many others, that “man carries in himself the image of the whole creation and, therefore, is a microcosm” (Nemesius, De natura hominis, ch. 1), but he also prescribes him a new mission. A human being receives a mediating function. As the dichotomy both in man and the created world could be observed, man can become a place where harmony can be initiated. Inner harmony which could be introduced into human existence, as a consequence will be mirrored in the whole universe. Being a microcosm man becomes simultaneously a mediator. Thunberg remarks that Nemesius of Emesa combines “the idea of microcosm with that of man as a mediator. And this is particular combination – though without the very strong dualism in relation to created beings, which is a Platonist element”. (Thunberg, p. 145)

6. Gregory of Nyssa

Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395) is another fascinating author who in the 4th century constructed his concept of anthropology, cosmology and Christian salvation. He was perfectly conscious of the microcosmic motif. Gregory, as other Christian writers, underlines that it is not enough to call man a microcosm. He is king and crown of universe, of all created beings. (Gregory of Nyssa, De opifitio hominis, 16) On the Inscriptions of the Psalms – Gregory links the microcosmic idea with one of his favorites metaphors of musical harmony to show the construction of the world which consists of oppositions.

I once heard a wise man expound a theory about our nature. He said that man is a miniature

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cosmos and contains all the elements of the great cosmos. And the orderly arrangements of the universe, he said, is a diverse and variegated musical harmony, which has been tuned in relation to itself and in accord with itself and is never distracted from this harmony even though a great distinction of essence is observed in the individual parts. (...) For the concord of all creation with itself, which has been composed through opposites, is truly a hymn of glory of the inaccessible and inexpressible God produced by such a rhythm. (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, I, 19-20)

Exactly the same situation could be observed in human beings – the harmony of the oppo- site (spiritual and corporal) elements. Man is called to renew this harmony in his own being and then in the whole universe.

7. Maximus the Confessor

Maximus the Confessor (c. 580 – 13 August 662) continued Nemesius’s and Gregory’s ideas. He also understands and describes man as a microcosm but even more strongly underlines the mediating character of man. To describe a human being he used, for example, the following Greek terms: sundesmos (mediator, nod, knot, connector) and sunektikotaton ergasterion (the most uni- fying, the most holding together) (Gatti, p. 374). Man, as a microcosm, is the image of the whole world consisting of elements.

For if every nature of whatever exist is divided into things that are either intelligible or sensible, and if the former are said to be and are eternal (insofar as they received whereas the latter are temporal (insofar as they were created in time), and if the former are subject to intellection, whereas the latter of sensation, that is due to the indissoluble power of their natural property of relation which has bound them all tightly together, for might indeed is the relationship of intelligible beings to the objects of intellection, as is that of sensible beings to the objects of sense, and thus man, fashioned of soul and sensible body, through his proper, natural relation of reciprocity to each of these parts of creation, is both contained within these divisions and contains them: the

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former by virtue of his substance, and the latter by his potential, for being himself extended into these two divided realms, he is able by virtue of his own double nature to draw them together into unity, for he is contained within the intelligible and sensible, insofar as he is himself a soul and body, yet he has the potential to contain both of these realms within himself, insofar as he pos- sesses both intellect and sensation. (Maximus the Confessor, The Ambigua, 10)

We can find some important thoughts concerning the relation between God, man and the world in a treatise dedicated to religious mysteries. In his Mistagogy he presents his understanding of Christian liturgy as a cosmic one. Not only human beings but also the church is an image and figure of God (Maximus, Mystagogy, I). Moreover, the Church of God represents the world composed of visible and invisible substance (Maximus, Mystagogy, II) and finally the church represents human beings (Maximus, Mystagogy, III). In Christian liturgy Maximus noticed the rich- ness and correspondence of microcosmic symbols. In his liturgical treatise he also explained “how the world is said to be a man and in what manner man is the world” (Maximus, Mystagogy, VII). In this cosmic liturgy the whole mediating process could be seen. As according the Maximus the Confessor after the original sin the world has been marked by fundamental divisions. Man in his middle position has the mediating mission to surpass and annihilate those fundamental divisions.

Those five divisions were described in Difficulty 41. These are the divisions between uncre- ated nature and created one, between intelligible and sensible, heaven and earth, paradise and inhabited world, and finally between male and female. (A. Louth, p. 72 – 73). And as human beings could be found on both sides of each division they are called to recreate the initial harmony, to mediate between the extremes of the cosmos as a natural bond and to lead all created nature to perfect union and harmony with the Creator. (Maximus, The Ambigua, 41).

St. Maximus works out his own vision of the world; his own Christian metaphysics. It is therefore important not only for philosophical and theological researches but even for ecology as man being responsible for mediating between God and all creation should take environmental concerns seriously (Tollefsen, p.258)

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8. Conclusion

The two important changes that were introduced in the common motif of understanding man as a microcosm when it was adopted by religious writers are: first, simultaneous understanding of man as created in the image of God which emphasizes the unique role and place of a human being in the universe. Man received also the new function of mediation between the created world and God because by the ancestral/ first sin the harmony (simfonia) of creation was broken. In a human being as in the whole universe the fundamental dichotomy between soul and body; the spiritual and the material could be found. Through by deification of a human being the whole world could find new unity with its Creator.

References:

Allers, R., MICROCOSMUS. From Anaximandros to Paracelus, „Traditio” 2 (1944), s.319 – 407.

Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus ad Graecos, SCh 2bis, ed. P. Claude Mondésert, M. André Plassart, Paris 2004.

Conger, G. P., Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy, New York 1922.

Diels – Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Berlin 1951-1952.

Gatti, M.L., Massimo il Confessore, Saggio di bibliografia generale ragionata e contributi per una reconstruzione scientifica del suo pensiero metafisico e religioso, Milano 1987.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, trans.R. Heine, Oxford 1995.

Gregory of Nyssa, De opifitio hominis, trans. W. Moore and H. A. Wilson, Buffalo 1893

Louth A., Maximus the Confessor, London – New York 1996

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Maximus the Confessor, The Mistagogia, in Maximus Confessor, Selected Writings, New York 1985.

Maximus the Confessor, On the Difficulties in the Church Fathers. The Ambigua, transl. N. Constas, t. I- II, London 2014

Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans. R. E. Heine, Washington 2002. Osborn, E. F., The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria, Cambridge 1957.

Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation, ed. The contemporary of

Josephus, translated from the Greek By Charles Duke Yonge, London, H. G. Bohn, 1854-1890; http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/index.html access: 20.04.2015.

Photius: Anonymus: The Life of Pythagoras Preserved by Photius http://www. american-bud- dha.com/cult.pythagsourcebook.1.3.htm access: 20.04.2015

Reale, G., Historia filozofii starożytnej, t. V, Lublin 2002.

Thunberg, L., Microcosm and Mediator. Theological anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, Chicago 1995.

Tollefsen, T.T., The Mystery of Christ as a Key to the Cosmology of St. Maximus the Confessor, “Studia Patristica”, vol. XLII, 2006, s. 255 – 258.

- 46 - Notes for Contributors

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