A PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATION OF ARISTOTLE’S HISTORIA ANIMALIUM by Keith Bemer BA, St. John’s College, 1998 MST, Pace University, 2005 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2014 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Keith Bemer It was defended on July 10th, 2014 and approved by Peter K. Machamer, Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science James Allen, Professor, Department of Philosophy James Bogen, Adjunct Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science Alan Code, Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University Dissertation Advisor: James, G. Lennox, Professor, History and Philosophy of Science ii Copyright © by Keith Bemer 2014 iii A Philosophical Examination of Aristotle’s History of Animals Keith Bemer, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2014 In this dissertation I address two related questions pertaining to Aristotle’s philosophy of science and his biology and zoology. They are: (1) what are the goals of Aristotle’s Historia Animalium (HA) and how does the treatise achieve these goals? And, more generally, (2) what is the role of a historia in Aristotle’s philosophy of science? Together these questions touch upon a long recognized problem in the interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophical and scientific works related to the relationship between Aristotle’s philosophy of science and his actual scientific practice. I pursue this broad question by focusing my attention on Aristotle’s historia of animals and the related discussions of scientific investigation and demonstration, primarily in the Analytics. I argue that the term historia was used by Aristotle with a range of meanings that center around the notions of investigation and inquiry (or the reports thereof), and, in some instances, emphasize the early stages of inquiry, dedicated to establishing and organizing facts prior to causal explanation. I proceed by considering the theoretical background of a historia provided by the Analytics and Parts of Animals, before turning to a detailed analysis of select passages from the HA itself. I argue that the Analytics provides the framework for a method of correlating facts regarding a field of study that acts as a guide to further causal research, but that establishing the actual causal relations that hold within a field depends upon additional considerations that are largely domain-specific. I turn to the HA in order to illustrate this method of correlation, noting examples where the correlation of features appears to prefigure causal iv explanations. I conclude by considering the relationship between Aristotle’s notions of historia and experience (empeiria), and argue that a historia provides the sort of comprehensive, factual knowledge of a domain of study that Aristotle often notes is necessary for coming to recognize causal relations, and thus coming to have scientific knowledge (epistêmê). v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................. XII INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 1.0 PROBLEMS AND PRIOR LITERATURE .............................................................. 6 1.1 INTERPRETATIONS OF HA ........................................................................... 6 1.1.1 Prior to Balme (Louis, Peck) ........................................................................ 7 1.1.2 Balme ............................................................................................................ 13 1.1.3 Lennox and Gotthelf ................................................................................... 19 1.1.4 Charles ......................................................................................................... 24 1.2 REFLECTION ................................................................................................... 27 2.0 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS I: REFERENCES TO HISTORIA IN THE ARISTOTELIAN CORPUS ............................................................................................. 29 2.1 MEANING OF HISTORIA ............................................................................... 30 2.2 USES OF THE TERM HISTORIA IN THE ARISTOTELIAN CORPUS .. 33 2.2.1 General uses of historia ............................................................................... 34 2.2.2 Historia as “story” and “history” .............................................................. 35 2.2.3 Historia as “investigation” or “inquiry” ................................................... 40 2.2.4 Reflection on general uses of historia ........................................................ 49 2.3 SPECIFIC REFERENCES TO HA ................................................................. 49 vi 2.3.1 Historia as hoti investigation ...................................................................... 51 2.3.2 Historia and anatomai ................................................................................. 54 2.3.3 Passages that explicitly reference differences ........................................... 57 3.0 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS II: THE ANALYTICS AND PARTS OF ANIMALS I. ................................................................................................................................. 62 3.1 HA I.6, 491A7-14: METHODOLOGICAL CLUES REGARDING AIMS AND PURPOSES OF HA .................................................................................................. 63 3.2 ANALYTICS AS BACKGROUND TO HA ..................................................... 66 3.2.1 Hoti knowledge in APo. I.13 ....................................................................... 66 3.2.2 APo. II.1-2: hoti/dioti, ei esit/ti esti ............................................................. 70 3.2.3 APo. II.8-10: discovering causes ................................................................ 79 3.2.4 APo. II.13: “hunting” for essential attributes .......................................... 82 3.2.5 APo. II.14: coming to grips with problems ............................................... 89 3.2.6 APo. II.16-17: coextension of cause and effect ......................................... 95 3.2.7 Reflection ..................................................................................................... 99 3.3 PA I: ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY/ZOOLOGY .......... 100 3.3.1 Individual ousiai or attributes? ............................................................... 101 3.3.2 Phenomena and causes ............................................................................. 105 3.3.3 The priority of final causation ................................................................. 107 3.3.4 Reflection ................................................................................................... 110 3.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 111 4.0 INTRODUCTION TO THE TREATISE: HA I.1-6 (486A5-491A14) ................ 112 vii 4.1 SAMENESS AND DIFFERENCE OF THE PARTS OF ANIMALS (486A5- 487A10) ............................................................................................................................114 4.1.1 Summary .................................................................................................... 114 4.1.2 Analysis ...................................................................................................... 116 4.1.2.1 The peculiarity of HA’s introduction .............................................. 116 4.1.2.2 Differences in the parts of animals .................................................. 119 4.1.2.3 Typology of sameness and difference .............................................. 122 4.1.2.4 Differences in uniform parts ............................................................ 127 4.1.2.5 Concluding thoughts on 486a5-487a10 ........................................... 127 4.2 BIOS, PRAXIS, ÊTHOS (487A11-488B28) .................................................... 128 4.2.1 Manners of life, characters, and activities (487a11-488b28) ................. 131 4.2.1.1 Summary ............................................................................................ 131 4.2.1.2 Analysis .............................................................................................. 131 4.2.2 Manner of life and activities (487b33-488b11) ....................................... 138 4.2.2.1 Summary ............................................................................................ 138 4.2.2.2 Analysis .............................................................................................. 140 4.2.3 Character (488b12-28) .............................................................................. 146 4.2.3.1 Summary ............................................................................................ 146 4.2.3.2 Analysis .............................................................................................. 148 4.3 MOST NECESSARY PARTS OF ANIMALS (488B29-489A34) ............... 149 4.3.1 Summary .................................................................................................... 149 4.3.2 Analysis .....................................................................................................