Article ID: CBB681371081

Dualisers in Aristotle’s Biology (2019)

unapi

Aristotle often claims that some animal kinds “dualise” between two opposite groups (e. g., terrestrial and aquatic, or biped and quadruped), i. e. that they belong “to both and to neither”. This claim is paradoxical since it appears to attribute incompatible features to the same kind. Some scholars have therefore suggested that, for Aristotle, dualisers are not an objective phenomenon, but rather a misleading appearance that depends of the ambiguity of terms like “aquatic”. Others have argued that Aristotle’s classifications contain overlaps because they are not meant to capture an essentialist hierarchy of kinds. I show that Aristotle sees dualisers as an objective feature of the world that does not depend on the ambiguity of our concepts, and that the passages on dualisers can be better understood on an essentialist (as opposed to a relativist) interpretation of classification. For Aristotle, dualisers belong “to both and to neither” of two opposite kinds because they belong to both in a spurious sense, but they are not full members of either.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB681371081/

Similar Citations

Chapter Lennox, James G.; (2010)
The Unity and Purpose of On the Parts of Animals I (/isis/citation/CBB001500201/)

Book Zucker, Arnaud; (2005)
Aristote et les classifications zoologiques (/isis/citation/CBB000640549/)

Chapter Brian W. Ogilvie; (2013)
Beasts, Birds, and Insects: Folkbiology and Early Modern Classification of Insects (/isis/citation/CBB186772179/)

Chapter Des Chene, Dennis; (2006)
Animal as Category: Bayle's “Rorarius” (/isis/citation/CBB000771979/)

Book Armand Marie Leroi; (2014)
The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science (/isis/citation/CBB469580482/)

Article Guasparri, Andrea; (2013)
Explicit Nomenclature and Classification in Pliny's Natural History XXXII (/isis/citation/CBB001320261/)

Article Lieven, Alexander Fürst von; Humar, Marcel; (2008)
A Cladistic Analysis of Aristotle's Animal Groups in the Historia animalium (/isis/citation/CBB000931571/)

Thesis Cirillo, Thomas McCulloch; (2012)
Categorizing Difference: Classification, Biology, and Politics in Aristotelian Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB001561021/)

Book Gotthelf, Allan; Leunissen, Mariska; Beullens, Pieter; (2012)
Teleology, First Principles and Scientific Method in Aristotle's Biology (/isis/citation/CBB001250500/)

Article Lennox, James G.; (2014)
Aristotle on the Emergence of Material Complexity: Meteorology IV and Aristotle's Biology (/isis/citation/CBB001421726/)

Article Ignacio De Ribera-Martin; (2019)
Seed (Sperma) and Kuêma in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals (/isis/citation/CBB375309519/)

Article Modell, Stephen; (2009)
Aristotelian Influence in the Formation of Medical Theory (/isis/citation/CBB001030463/)

Book Tipton, Jason A.; (2014)
Philosophical Biology in Aristotle's Parts of Animals (/isis/citation/CBB001500574/)

Article Ted Geier; (2018)
Doing the Work: Taxonomies of Animal Study and the Labor of Love (/isis/citation/CBB051499437/)

Article Alakbarli, Farid; (2006)
Systematic Analysis of Animals Used in Medieval Azerbaijan Medicine (/isis/citation/CBB000932455/)

Book Agassiz, Jean Louis Rodolphe; (2004)
Essay on Classification (/isis/citation/CBB000550973/)

Authors & Contributors
Lennox, James G.
Geier, Ted
Ribera-Martin, Ignacio De
Kerimov, Khafiz
Hendrikx, Sophia
Tipton, Jason A.
Concepts
Animals
Classification in biology
Biology
Zoology
Natural history
Classification
Time Periods
Ancient
19th century
Early modern
Medieval
21st century
20th century, early
Places
Greece
Caucasus Mountains (Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia)
Boston (Massachusetts, U.S.)
Rome (Italy)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment