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Aristotle on Norms of InquiryAuthor(s): James G. Lennox

Source: HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 23-46Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the International Society for theHistory of Philosophy of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658482 .

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ARISTOTLE ON NORMS OF INQUIRY

James G. Lennox

Where does Aristotle stand in the debate between rationalism and empiricism? The locus

classicus on this question, Posterior Analytics II. 19, seems clearly empiricist. Yet many

commentators have resisted this conclusion. Here, I review their arguments and conclude

that they rest in part on expectations for this text that go unfulfilled. I argue that this is

because his views about norms of empirical inquiry are in therich methodological passages

in his scientific treatises. In support of this claim, I explore such passages in On Parts of Animals and De anima . I argue that they reach distinct, though complementary, conclu-

sions about the norms governing zoological and psychological inquiries.

1. Introduction

A classic question that has divided scholarship on Aristotle from the Greek

commentators forward is whether, when it comes to scientific first principles,

James G. Lennox, professor of history and philosophy of science, Department of History andPhilosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Avenue,

Pittsburgh, PA 15260 ( [email protected]).

Ernan McMullin took up a 2-year residence as a visiting fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science in

1978–79,shortly after I wasappointedassistantprofessorof history andphilosophy of science at theUniversity of Pittsburgh. We eventually became friends. I've never forgotten his kindness and encouragement toward me

in those years, and his work served us all as a model for our field. This article is dedicated to his memory.

I thank the participants in an eponymous seminar at the University of Pittsburgh for helpful discussion,and especially Keith Bemer, Peter Distelzweig, and Allan Gotthelf. The line of argument here first took

shape as a presentation to the Philosophy Colloquium of Duquesne University. I thank Ron Polansky for the invitation and the audience for probing questions. During my time as Biggs Lecturer at Washington

University, St. Louis (April 2010), I presented some of this material to the Faculty Seminar, during which

Eric Brown and Mariska Leunissen pressed helpfully on a number of my contentions. The occasion for this

publication was a presentation to an Aristotle Session at the 2010 meetings of the International Society for

History of Philosophy of Science in Budapest ( June 2010). On that occasion, I received helpful feedback

from István Bodnar, Boris Hennig, John McCaskey, Pierre Pellegrin, and Tiberiu Popa. Finally,encouraging discussions over the last couple of years with James Allen, David Charles, Alan Code, Allan

Gotthelf, Devin Henry, Aryeh Kosman, Mariska Leunissen, Greg Salmieri, and Joel Yurdin have helped

this project in innumerable ways, though I am confident none of them agrees entirely with its conclusions.

HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, vol. 1 (Spring 2011).2152-5188/2011/0101-0002$10.00. © 2011 by the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.

All rights reserved.

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Aristotle is an empiricist or a rationalist—or put slightly differently, an induc-tivist or a coherentist.1 In a recent critical survey of various attempts to make

Aristotle out to be an empiricist on this question, Michael Ferejohn has legiti-

mately questioned whether there is an inevitable anachronistic distortion thatarises from putting the issue in these terms (2009). Of course the ‘rationalism/empiricism’ divide has ancient roots in Hellenistic medicine, but all of the in-terpreters Ferejohn takes to task, he argues, are in one way or another framing the issue in ways that presuppose the concerns of post-Cartesian epistemology.2

I will add that one has the impression that the answer given by a particular com-mentator stems more from a principle of charity than from positive evidencefor the attribution: Aristotle is a profound philosopher, and a profound phi-losopher should hold that first principles are grounded in the appropriate

way. At first blush, it would seem obvious that Aristotle is on the empiricist/

inductivist side of this issue. After all, the text that is often taken to state hisdefinitive position on the question, Posterior Analytics II. 19, claims that thereis a path that leads from perception to ‘the first universal in the soul’, andfrom there to first principles, a path described as ‘coming to know by induction’

( APo. II. 19 100a3–b4). And it appears this path is characterized in very similar terms in the first chapter of the Metaphysics . More generally, as we will see, there

appear to be explicit proclamations of empiricist commitments in his works innatural science.There are, however, good reasons why many commentators on Aristotle

have resisted attributing this position to him. In this article, I review thosereasons and suggest that they stem from looking in the wrong place for

Aristotle’s views on inductive inquiry. Aristotle, as it turns out (and as he tellsus repeatedly), is a ‘localist’ when it comes to scientific first principles—not just

1. The full name of Aristotle’s works will be used the first time a work is mentioned; after that, the

following abbreviations will be used unless context demands otherwise: Posterior Analytics ( APo.), Prior Analytics ( APr.), On Parts of Animals (PA), Historia Animalium (HA), De anima (De an.), NicomacheanEthics (EN ), Metaphysics ( Metaph .), Meteorology ( Mete .), and De caelo (Cael .). All translations are mine,

except where otherwise indicated.

2. While I am sympathetic to Ferejohn’s critical evaluations of the work he surveys, I am less so with

his central argument for distancing Aristotle’s project from that of the empiricists of the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries. Ferejohn rightly sees their central concern as how legitimately to abstract universal

knowledge from sensory particulars, while he reads a notoriously mysterious sentence in APo. II. 19 asevidence that, for Aristotle, this is not a concern since the content of perception is (already) universal. As

Ferejohn puts it, Aristotle is an “immanent realist” and thus need not concern himself about abstracting

universal content from particulars (2009, 71). I think there is ample evidence that Aristotle is not an

immanent realist in this sense (cf. Metaph . Λ . 5 1071a19–20, Z. 13 1038b8–12, 1038b34–39a2) andthat he is as concerned about how one grasps universals on the basis of an experience of particulars, as

people in the seventeenth century were.

H O P O S l Aristotle on Norms of Inquiry

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in the sense that each science has first principles peculiar to it but in the sensethat those principles will be discovered only by attending to facts that are spe-cific to the domain that they govern. What one can say at the level of complete

generality about how one grounds the basic concepts, definitions, and causalprinciples of a science is quite limited and provides very little guidance on how one goes methodically from one’s initial, unsystematic experience with a spe-cific domain of the natural world to a systematic knowledge of that domain thatrests on true, immediate, causally primary principles.

There are two reasons for this localism. First, the objects in different do-mains are different, and since Aristotle is antireductionist, these differencesare nontrivial. It is his view that understanding those different objects will only come from attending to what differentiates them from other things, as much asfrom attending to what all natural objects have in common. Second, we standin different epistemic relationships to different kinds of objects. The difference

Aristotle remarks on most often is that between the eternal, but remote, beingsin the heaven and the mutable and perishable plants and animals all aroundus, which are more like us and which, in any case, can be studied to our heart’scontent. In On Parts of Animals I. 5, for example, he comments on the epis-temological differences between these two branches of natural science asfollows:

Among the substantial beings constituted by nature, some are ungeneratedand imperishable through all eternity, while others partake of generationand perishing. Yet it has turned out that our studies of the former, thoughthey are valuable and divine, are fewer (for as regards both those things onthe basis of which one would examine them and those things about them

which we long to know, the perceptual phenomena are altogether few). We are, however, much better provided in relation to knowledge aboutthe perishable plants and animals, because we live among them. For any-

one wishing to labor sufficiently can grasp many things about eachkind. … Perishable beings take the prize with respect to scientific knowl-edge because we know more of them and we know them more fully.(644b22–30, 645a1–2)

With less eloquence, but to the same effect, he introduces his attempt toaccount for the variations in direction of motion of the heavenly bodies inDe caelo as follows: “Since circular movement is not opposed to circular move-ment, we must investigate on what account there are many motions, even if weare attempting to make the inquiry from a great distance—distant not [merely]

Lennox l S P R I N G 2011

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in respect of location, but much more in respect of having perceptual awarenessof far too few of the attributes that belong to these things” (Cael .II.3286a3–8).

2. Framing the Issue

A good place to begin is with one of the many passages in Aristotle that could becited to establish his credentials as an empiricist. “Lack of experience [η‛ α’ πειρία]is a cause of the relative inability to comprehend the admitted facts. Whereforethose who have dwelt more among natural things [ε’ νω

ι κήασι μα λλ o ν ε’ ν τoις

φυσικ oις] are better able to postulate principles of the sort that can connectmany things together; while those who, from engaging in many arguments, havefailed to study things as they are, readily show themselves capable of seeing very little” (Generation and Corruption I. 2 316a5–10). Note that this is not justa description of how one acquires principles ‘that can connect many thingstogether ’—it is a passage shot through with normative language. Lack of ex-perience accounts for a failure of comprehension; the more you ‘dwell among natural things’, the better able you will be to identify appropriate principles. Itsounds as if Aristotle has some view that sufficient experience of the subjectmatter for which you seek understanding is necessary to guide you to appropriatefirst principles.

Nevertheless, for reasons that I will explore momentarily, scholars of Aristotle who are perfectly familiar with this text see no such implication. Here are twoexamples: “To the extent that this [acquisition of concepts] is a natural processbased on perception, the relation between our perceptions and our knowledgeof first principles … is a natural, a causal, rather than an epistemic relation. Andthis is how Aristotle can be an extreme rationalist and still constantly insist on thefundamental importance of perception for knowledge” (Frede 1996, 172; italicsadded). “His conception of demonstration embodies a foundationalist concep-tion of justification. The right sort of justification must avoid infinite regress

and vicious circle; and Aristotle can meet this requirement only if he recog-nizes self-evident first principles grasped by intuition” (Irwin 1998, 134; italicsadded).

On the basis of their readings of the Posterior Analytics , and especially its clos-ing chapter on the path to first principles, Michael Frede depicts Aristotle as anextreme rationalist, Terrance Irwin as an intuitionist.3 What leads them to these

3. Irwin will go on, of course, to argue that Aristotle abandons this position, to which earlier

commitments in APo. force him, and creates the discipline of First Philosophy to allow for a justifi-

cation of first principles grounded in ‘strong dialectic’ (see Irwin 1988, 148–54); that is, Aristotletrades in intuitionism for coherentism. I will not consider this move here since I agree with those

who do not think Aristotle is in any way committed to intuitionism about first principles in APo.


26







‘antiempiricist’ readings of Aristotle’s views about grounding first principles?First of all, it is clear that each of these scholars approaches the question withat least two unquestioned assumptions borrowed from modern epistemology:

(1) justification must follow discovery; the latter may be a suitable subject for psychology or biography, but only the former is ‘normative’ and a suitable topicfor epistemology, and (2) norms and standards are denizens of the space of rea-sons, not of the natural, law-governed world. From the standpoint of a person

wedded to these assumptions, any proposal that epistemic norms are built into theinductive, ‘principle discovering ’ process of inquiry is ill conceived from the start.Out of respect, perhaps, Frede refuses to attribute such a view to Aristotle, reading passages that sound like such a view as characterizing a “natural, a causal, rather than an epistemic relation,” and Irwin argues that Aristotle recognizes the error of his intuitionist ways and invents metaphysics and strong dialectic as a way out.

The problem is not merely one of reading the Posterior Analytics through theassumptions of analytic philosophy, however. The Analytics ’ account of induc-tion (ε’ παγωγή), the way to first principles, is (and, I would argue, must be)strikingly devoid of what any self-respecting modern inductivist is looking for.In particular, it is devoid of one feature that, at least since Francis Bacon, every-one expects to be the centerpiece of a theory of induction: a set of norms or standards to keep your inquiry ‘on track ’ and ‘self-correcting ’. Aristotle is almost

obsessively concerned with the errors of his predecessors, and so he ought tohave been concerned to articulate such norms. But where, in APo. II. 19, for example, does one find them? Norms for such things as proof, explanation, or proper definition abound, but what about inquiry, the subject of the entiresecond book? Even those who wish to paint Aristotle as an empiricist of somesort make excuses for him on this point.

I shall argue that they need not do so, however. Both those who want todepict him as a rationalist of one sort or another and those who depict himas an empiricist have been looking in the wrong place for his views on norms

that need to be followed in order for an inquiry to be successful. A passage in thePrior Analytics that is often cited, by those with empiricist leanings, to supporttheir case makes, I believe, a very different point. “The majority of principles for each science are distinctive [ ι’ διαι] to it. Consequently, it is for our experiencesconcerning each subject to provide the principles. I mean, for instance, that it isfor astronomical experience to provide the principles for the science of astron-omy (for when the appearances had been sufficiently grasped, in this way as-tronomical demonstrations were discovered; and it is also similar concerning any other art or science whatsoever)” ( APr . I. 30 46a17–27). This passage isnot, primarily, a general endorsement of empiricism about first principles(although I think it implies that). Its primary messages, I believe, are (1) most


27







of the causal principles and definitions that inquiry seeks are specific to distinctareas of knowledge, and (2) the norms and standards for searching for themare thus, in an important sense, also specific. Very little can be said in the

abstract about this topic. The implication I have drawn from these messagesis that Aristotle’s views on the question of what standards and norms areneeded to ensure successful inquiry will be found in the methodologically normative passages in his scientific works, especially, but not limited to,the introductions to these works.

In the remainder of this article, I will build a preliminary case for this con-clusion in two steps.4 First, I will explore Aristotle’s use of the concept of μεθoδoς in a number of key passages, focusing on those that are in the passagesthat introduce an inquiry. That will lead rather naturally into a more detailed,although still somewhat sketchy, examination of two such passages, where it isquite clear that Aristotle is raising questions about what standards are appro-priate for the investigation on which he is embarking and what norms of in-quiry those standards call for.

3. Discourses on μεθoδoς

Aristotle may actually have composed a discourse on method. Early in the Rhetoric ,

in the context of explaining that rhetoric makes use of techniques that have their counterparts in dialectic, he remarks that “it is also apparent that each form of rhetoric has its own good; for what has been said in the discourses on method[ε’ ν τoις μεθoδικ oις (λ oγoις?)], applies equally well here—some forms of rheto-ric appeal to exemplars, others to persuasive arguments, and the same goes for rhetoricians” (Rhetoric I. 2 1356b20–3).

And in its catalog of Aristotle’s works, Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philos- ophers (V. 23; Hicks 1925) refers to Mεθoδικα α′β′γ′δ′ε′ς′ζ′η. That thismight be an alternative way of referring to either the Topics or the Analytics isunlikely since both works are explicitly referred to by those names just a few lines before this passage. In any case, we can tell from the context the sort of thing that was apparently discussed there: the use of exemplars and enthymeme inrhetoric corresponds to the use of induction and deduction in dialectic. That is,it sounds as if, if there were such a work, it discussed, among other things, the waysin which different disciplines proceed by different although related methods—

in this case, different although related methods of argument.

4. The full case will be made in a book on which I am currently working, for which this article can be

seen as an advertisement.


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The word μεθoδoς appears with remarkable frequency in the opening sen-tences of Aristotle’s major treatises, a fact that is rarely noted. Take the following nonexhaustive set of examples (since the meaning and use of the term will be

under review, I will simply transliterate μεθoδoς in these passages): “knowledge,and in particular scientific knowledge about every methodos ” (Physics I.1 184a10–11); “regarding every study [theoria ] and methodos , the more humbleand the more valuable alike (PA I. 1 639a1–2); “every craft [technê ] and every methodos , and likewise every action and decision [ proairesis ], seems to aim atsome good” (Nicomachean Ethics I. 1 1094a1–3); “it remains for us to study a part of the same methodos , which everyone prior to us has called meteorology ”( Meteorology I. 1 338a25–6); “the theme proposed for this work is to discover a methodos by which we will be able to reason from accepted opinions about any proposed problem” (Topics I. 1 100a18); “since nature is a source of motion andchange, and our methodos is about nature, we must not overlook the question,‘ What is motion?’” (Physics III. 1, 200b12–13).

One reason for the failure to comment on this potentially revealing factabout Aristotle’s opening paragraphs is suggested by the lack of agreement onhow μεθoδoς is to be translated. Take the following sample of translations of theopening words of Physics I. 1 184a10, for example. The relevant Greek phrase isπερι πασας τας μεθόδo υς, which is variously translated: “in all disciplines”

(Charlton 1992), “

toutes les recherches”

(Pellegrin 2000), “

in any subject”

(Waterfield 1996), “in any department” (Hardie and Gaye 1930), “in every lineof inquiry ” (Irwin and Fine 1995, 83, with glossary note, 594), and “in every inquiry ” (Bolton 1991, 2). I have no doubt that a wider sampling would turnup other options. There appears to be no general agreement among translatorsabout what Aristotle has in mind by the term in any particular application. More-over, as I will explore in some detail, Aristotle deploys the concept in two very different ways. In one, it feels natural to offer transliteration as translation, for

Aristotle seems to be referring to a method, a way of proceeding (which is un-

surprising since the root of the Greek word is o‛δός, which refers primarily to a

path or route). This seems to be the sense carried by the term at the beginning of the Topics , quoted above. But the term is also used with some frequency in a way that suggests reference, not to the method by which a human activity is done butto the activity itself. Most of the translations of the opening phrase in Physics I. 1,for example, take it that way, although they differ about whether it refers specifically to inquiry or research or to a field of knowledge more generally. Without begging any questions, I am going to proceed on the hypothesis that there is a significantdifference between these two uses and explore two texts, each of which seems tobe a rich and self-conscious discussion about the nature of an inquiry in which

Aristotle is engaged but which uses μεθoδoς in two somewhat different ways.


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4. How to Proceed with Animals

Aristotle’s Meteorology opens with a review of what the course of study of the

natural world has covered so far (338a20–

25): the primary causes of nature, allnatural motion, the movement of the ordered system of stars, the elementsof bodies, how many there are and what sort, their changes into one another,and generation and decay of the most common kind. He is now about to beginan investigation of “a part of the same μεθoδoς, which all previous inves-tigators have called meteorology ” (338a25–26). After outlining what is in-

volved in that investigation, he goes on: “Having dealt with these subjects, we will study whether we are somehow able, according to the recommendedmanner [κατα τò ν υ‛ φηγημε νo ν τρόπo ν],5 to give an account of animals and

plants, both in general and separately. For having spoken of these things we would pretty much have reached the goal of our original plan in its entirety ”(339a5–9).

As I have argued elsewhere (Lennox 2010), this question about whether weare able to give an account of animals and plants according to the same methodadopted for the previously recounted branches of natural science is a genuineconcern for Aristotle. Moreover, it is not primarily a question about how tostudy animals and plants; rather, it is a metalevel question about whether themethods used elsewhere in the study of nature suffice for living nature. It is, I

believe, the question that lies behind the need for PA I.PA I, which is generally recognized as a philosophical introduction to the

study of animals, begins with the following words:

Περι πα σα ν θεωρία ν τε και μεθoδo ν, o‛ μoίως ταπει νoτερα ν τε και

τιμιωτερα ν, δύo φαι νo νται τρόπoι της ε‛ ξεως ει’ ναι, ω‛ ν τη ν με ν

ε’ πιστήμη ν τo υ πραγματoς καλω ς ε’ χει πρoσαγoρεύει ν, τη ν δ’ oι‛ o ν

παιδεία ν τι να. (1 639a1–5)

[Regarding every study and every investigation, the more humble andmore valuable alike, there appear to be two sorts of state, one of whichmay properly be called understanding of the subject matter, the other a certain sort of educatedness.]

PA I is a guide to acquiring that second state, this special form of paideia , whichprovides one with the ability to make critical judgments about what is well or

5. Compare “κατα τη ν υ‛ φηγημε νη ν μεθoδo ν” (Politics I. 1 1252a17–18). These two phrases

are very close in meaning.


30







poorly expressed.6 Aristotle goes on to distinguish one who has a very generalform of this skill and one who has it about a specific discipline, say, the art of medicine (as in the passage from the Politics quoted in n. 6) or natural science.

Thus, at the end of this paragraph, he makes a transition to the business at hand with the following words: “So it is clear, for natural inquiry too [και της περί

φύσι ν ι‛ στoρίας], that there is need of some such standards [o‛ ρoι]” (639a12–

13). The ability to make such judgments requires certain standards, and if one’s paideia is about a specific field, then it will be standards appropriateto that field that one needs to acquire. This will be the topic of discussionfor the five chapters of PA I.

Let us now return briefly to the appearance of the concept of μεθoδoς in thefirst sentence of this book. I want to draw attention to the fact that θεωρία ν andμεθoδo ν are conjoined not simply by ‘and’ (καί) but by ‘both and’ (τε καί),

which makes it quite clear that these terms are conveying different ideas andare not merely synonyms. It could be that Aristotle has two different categoriesof cognitive endeavor in mind. However, it could also be, and I want to suggestthat it is the case, that he wants to make reference to two different aspects of a cognitive endeavor, aspects that are picked up when he identifies two differentstates associated with them—scientific knowledge (ε’ πιστήμη) and that generalcritical judgment he identifies as a certain sort of paideia . The evidence that I find

compelling for this reading comes from the last paragraph of chapter 4, which isa summary of what has been accomplished. “ We have said, then, how the investigation of nature [τη ν περι φύσεως μεθoδo ν] should be appraised, and in what way the study [η‛ θεωρία] of these things might proceed on course [o‛ δω

ι]

and with greatest ease. Further, about division [περι διαιρεσεως] we have saidinwhatway[τί να τρόπo ν] it is possible by pursuing it [μετιo υσι] to grasp thingsin a useful manner, and why dichotomy is in a way impossible and in a way

vacuous” (PA I. 4 644b17–22).The repetition of μεθoδoς and θεωρία here is almost certainly intended as a

conscious echo of the opening five words of PA I. 1, and here one can see thatthe two words are aimed at emphasizing different aspects of a single study. Pro-

visionally, I want to suggest that to refer to a μεθoδoς of X is to emphasize the way in which the investigation should be carried out, while to refer to a θεωρία

6. Compare the following comment: “Hence just as a court of physicians must judge the work of a physician, so also all other practitioners ought to be called to account before their fellows. But ‘physician’

means both the ordinary practitioner, and the master of the craft, and thirdly, the one who is generally

educated [o‛ πεπαιδευμε νoς] about the craft (for in almost all the arts there are some such people, and we

assign the right of judgment [τò κρί νει ν] just as much to the generally educated [τoι˜

ς πεπαιδυμε νoις] asto those with knowledge)” (Politics III. 6 1282a1). I suppose this third class corresponds to a philosopher

of science or medicine.


31







of X is to emphasize that the investigation is directed on a particular objector class of objects. A proper study of X requires that one proceed in a proper manner —the use of o‛ δω

ι

, in close proximity to its derivative μεθoδoς, pro-

vides further support for this thought.7 What Aristotle has been discussing for the previous four chapters are the norms that must guide animal inves-tigation if it is to stay ‘on course’ or ‘on track ’ toward the goal of scientificknowledge.

This passage, then, suggests a hypothesis about the connection betweenthese two uses of the term. To ask, as Mete. I. 1 does, “Is X part of the sameμεθoδoς as Y?” is to ask whether the same norms or standards of inquiry areappropriate for X and for Y. That is, it is to ask whether the same μεθoδoς is tobe used. If so, then you are licensed to refer to them as instances of the sameμεθoδoς. When the term is used in this way, its rules for application will besimilar to those for ‘inquiry ’, ‘investigation’, and ‘discipline’. However, it willpick out tokens of a type of investigation by attending to the norms and stan-dards that are in play, rather than to the object of investigation.

To make this hypothesis plausible, we shall now turn to the opening ques-tions of PA I. 1, with an eye to what Aristotle is trying to accomplish. In thefollowing section, we will turn to Aristotle’s methodological introduction to aninvestigation into the soul at the beginning of the De anima . What will be clear

from doing so is that the norms being discussed there, and even the way they arebeing discussed, are very different and entirely appropriate.During the introduction to PA I. 1, Aristotle discusses the special skill of

critical judgment we need to acquire, in a way that suggests it will be primarily of use in judging what others have said or written. However, as he turns to thequestions that need to be considered in acquiring this critical ability, as we saw,he refers to certain standards that need to be in place in the inquiry into nature,strongly suggesting that these are standards that ought also be referred to by oneengaged in an ongoing investigation, and when the first question is taken up,

that suggestion is confirmed. “ Wherefore how we ought to carry out the investigation [δει … πω ς ε’ πισκεπτεo ν] should not be overlooked; I mean, whether one should study things in common according to kind first, and then later their distinctive characteristics, or whether one should study them one by one straight

7. The noun η‛ o‛δός refers to a road, path, or track and is used metaphorically in much the same way as those English expressions are. The dative form used here often has adverbial force, conveying the

idea of staying on the road to your destination, thus my “on course.” Mεθoδoς is formed from that noun

and a prepositional prefix, μετα , which when used as a prefix carries the sense of ‘going after ’ and ‘in

quest of ’. The basic idea, then, is a path taken in quest or pursuit of something. It is already used inPlato’s Sophist (218d, 235c, 243d) to refer to an inquiry, and Republic VII. 533c refers to “the dialectical

method” (η‛ διαλεκτικη μεθoδoς) as the only way to advance to first principles.


32







away ” (639b4–5; emphasis added). I have highlighted three features of im-portance in this formulation:

1. The question is about how one ought to investigate: that is, it is a nor-mative question about inquiry.

2. This is reflected in an explicit question about the proper order of inves-tigation. That is, Aristotle appears to be concerned that if one does not

investigate things in the correct order, the investigation will inevitably go

off track.3. To be specific, Aristotle begins this discussion of proper method for in-

vestigating animals by raising a question about the level of generality that

should be targeted at the beginning of such an inquiry (639a16–19):

should we study individual species one by one or begin with attributes

possessed in common by many kinds of animal? He has now converted

this question into an interesting alternative: (a ) pursue a two-tiered inves-tigation, in which one begins by investigating features that belong in

common to kinds, and then later moves to investigating characteristics

that are distinctive to specific forms of those kinds, or (b ) begin investiga-

tion immediately with specific forms, studying each of them one by one.

These alternatives reflect the results of the intervening discussion (639a25–

b4) in which Aristotle articulates a distinction between two different kinds of commonly

possessed features: (1) commonly possessed undifferentiated features—he gives as

examples sleep and respiration—and (2) features that belong in common to many

animals but are differentiated ‘according to form’, a distinction you are far more

likely to notice if you begin at the more general level. Here, he gives as an example

one that is directly reflected in one of his own studies, De incessu animalium.

Locomotion belongs in common to a wide range of animals; however, some of

them fly, some walk, some swim, and some crawl.

Although he spends a great deal of time introducing and then fine-tuning the question here, he concludes by noting, with regret, that neither it nor thequestion to which he is about to turn has been adequately answered. He does,however, reintroduce this first question in chapter 4, after he has defended a new method of division that grows out of scathing demolition of Platonic di-chotomous division in chapters 2–3. That new method is designed to identify levels of differentiation of multiple, coextensive features that belong in commonto general groups of animals (as, e.g., feathers and beaks are common to all birds),groups he will elsewhere refer to as ‘great kinds’ (megista genê ). But such a methodof multiple differentiation presupposes that kinds constituted of such coextensivefeatures can be identified, and chapter 4 lays out a set of standards to be used in


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identifying such kinds at this general level. This is not the place to go into detailsabout these standards,8 but the narrative structure of PA I explains why Aristotleintroduces the question early in chapter 1 but does not fully answer it until

much later. It is a question that can receive a proper answer only after a proper method for tracking divisions of multiple features that ‘belong in common ac-cording to kind’ has been described and defended.

There are multiple examples in the Historia Animalium of Aristotle display-ing this method at work. I have chosen the opening of his discussion of thecephalopods, in the first chapter of book IV.

Among the animals called ‘soft-bodies’ these are the external parts: 1. theso-called feet; 2. the head, continuous with the feet; 3. the sac, containing the internal organs, which some mistakenly call the head; 4. the fin,

which encircles the sac. In all of the soft-bodies the head turns out to bebetween the feet and the belly. Moreover, all have eight ‘feet’, and all havetwo rows of suckers, except for one kind of octopus.9 The cuttlefish, andthe large and small calamary have a distinctive feature, two long tentacles,the ends of which are rough with two rows of suckers, by which they cap-ture food and convey it to their mouth and fasten themselves to a rock

when it storms, like an anchor.10 (523b21–33; cf. PA IV. 9 685a33–b2)

Here we see Aristotle capturing external anatomy at the level general to the kindfirst and then gradually moving to features that are peculiar to subkinds. Thisframework governs the rest of the discussion, which goes on for two moreBekker pages, concluding with a discussion of the “many kinds of octopuses,”itself a subkind of the cephalopods (τα μαλακια; lit. “the softies”).

This is, then, a methodological norm that is introduced in the form of a question about how to proceed with the investigation, which is gradually articu-lated and defended in PA I, and is consistently implemented in the presentation

of the results of his empirical investigation of animals in HA. Moreover, it

8. I have discussed these in Lennox (2005, 87–100); a different, more ‘theory-laden’ reading of the

same text can be found in Charles (2000, 312–16).

9. Eledone cirrhosa , the ‘lesser octopus’.

10. Aristotle’s account and those found in contemporary textbooks are very similar: “ Their [cuttlefish

and calamari] preferred diet is crabs or fish, and when it is close enough it opens apart its eight arms and outshoots two deceptively long feeding tentacles. On the end of each is a pad covered in suckers that grasp hold

of the prey ” (Dunlop 2003). One principle difference is that Aristotle consistently mentions two functions

for these tentacles, feeding and mooring during storms, while modern texts I have consulted only mention

feeding. One audience member, who attended a lecture in which I mentioned this discrepancy, claimed tohave repeatedly observed the mooring behavior described by Aristotle, while snorkeling in the

Mediterranean.


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appears to depend on another set of standards for (a ) identifying kinds thatshare a large number of features in common and (b ) producing divisions by means of noting differentiations of those general features within the many

forms of those kinds. For example (concretely), cephalopods are a good entry-level kind because they all share an overall distinctive bodily organization (head,eight legs, visceral sac, circular fin, etc.), many of those features are found to bedifferentiated in distinct ways in different subkinds (cuttlefish, squid, octopuses),and these differentiations can be tracked and correlated by the multiaxial methodof division characterized in PA I. 2–3 (e.g., tentacles with one vs. two rows of suckers). Moreover, these are norms that arise out of extensive experience withthe animal world and that are designed with an investigation of that world spe-cifically in mind.11

APr. I. 30, which I quoted above, asserts that the distinctive principles of a domain arise from the specific experiences of the objects of that domain and usesastronomy as its example. “It is for astronomical experience to provide the prin-ciples for the science of astronomy (for when the appearances had been sufficiently grasped, in this way astronomical demonstrations were discovered; and it is alsosimilar concerning any other art or science whatsoever)” (46a 23–27). At thatlevel of generality, perhaps the discovery of principles is similar in any other artor science. But in PA I. 1, Aristotle’s next question centers on this very issue:“ Whether, just as the mathematicians explain the phenomena that concern as-tronomy, so too the investigator of nature [τò φύσικ o ν], having first studied the

phenomena regarding animals and the parts of each, should then state the rea-son why and the causes, or whether he should proceed in some other way ”(639b7–10). Now one might think that if anything is an axiom of Aristotle’sphilosophy of science it is that you must first study the phenomena before going on to determine the reason why and the causes— What other way could an in-ductivist proceed? The investigation of animals and their parts is, however,

11. An extremely important issue that I cannot take the space to address here, but which I want to flag,

turns on distinguishing between Aristotle’s actual methodsof empirical investigation and his writtenreports

of the results of those investigations. When historians of science investigate many post-Renaissance natural

philosophers/scientists, they have access to such things as field notes, letters, laboratory notebooks,

autobiographical accounts of investigations, and so on. This allows a principled distinction between the

published book or journal article and the day-to-day struggle of collecting information, analyzing it, in-

terpreting it, and integrating new findings with old that is often suppressed in the publications that result.Not only do we not have these two different kinds of documents to compare in the case of Aristotle, but

we are not even entirely sure whether what we have is more like a published book or more like an inves-

tigator ’s notes of an ongoing investigation. This poses an intriguing metalevel problem for inquiry like that

in which I am currentlyengaged—Is it possible to distinguishin Aristotle’s texts norms for the presentationof the results of an inquiry from norms for carrying out an empirical inquiry? This footnote is intended to

signal only an awareness of the problem, not a solution to it.


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complicated and very different from that undertaken by the mathematical as-tronomer. Although it may not be immediately obvious, it turns out there aretwo normative questions embedded in this passage: (1) Should the natural

scientist proceed in the same way as the astronomer? (2) Should the naturalscientist, in studying animals, proceed from a study of animals and their partsto a study of their causes?12 Why does Aristotle raise these concerns here? Toanswer that question, it helps to remind ourselves of Aristotle’s views about theobjects that mathematical astronomy studies and our cognitive access to them.The objects of astronomy are the heavenly bodies, and Aristotle argues, inDe caelo, that they are eternal. The only change they engage in is movementin place, and it is because they move in changeless, circular patterns that themathematician can provide explanations of their motions. We can be sure of

very little about their material constitution or the physical causes of their mo-tions since our access to them is extremely limited.

It is thus not surprising that the philosophical discussion of PA I is structuredaround a distinction between two sorts of natural beings: those that are eternaland governed in their movements by unconditional necessity and those thatcome to be and pass away and are governed in their changes by conditionalnecessity (639b21–27, 640a1–2, 644b22–645a11). Animals are a special classof natural substances that come into being in a particularly complex and yet

coordinated manner that is evidently goal directed. Moreover, there are a vastnumber of different animals, and the number of ways in which they differ iseven more vast. Among their differences is a vast range of coordinated activitiesthat constitute their distinctive ways of life.

Thus, while the prescription to study the phenomena first and then the causesmay be unproblematic for mathematical astronomy, it is highly problematic for a norm-governed inquiry concerning the animals (η‛ περι τω ν ζω

ι

ν μεθoδoς;On Length and Shortness of Life 6. 467b7–9). To cite one class of problems on

which we will focus shortly, should one study the phenomena related to the process

of coming to be as well as the phenomena related to the anatomy, physiology, andbehavior of fully developed animals? Might the process of coming to be actually bethe cause of the fully developed animal and its features? If so, can we really distin-guish a noncausal from a causal stage of investigation in the case of animals?

These concerns, I would suggest, lie behind the fact that this question aboutthe proper way to order the investigation of animals, like the first question

12. Note that, stated in this way, what proceeding in this manner amounts to will be very different,

depending on whether you think that the material and generative conditions are the only or primary

causes of animals and their parts or you think that the form of the completed animal determines thenature of its parts and the order in which they must come to be. I believe it is Aristotle’s sensitivity to this

difference that leads him to delay answering it.


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about whether to begin with an investigation of specific kinds or features com-mon to many kinds, is not immediately answered. Before this second questioncan be answered, the complexity of causal explanation in the study of animals

needs to be addressed. Thus, after asking, and not answering, this questionabout whether the zoologist’s investigations should be patterned on those of the mathematical astronomer, Aristotle asks another question about the order of investigation. “Since we see more than one cause of natural generation, e.g.,both the cause for the sake of which and the cause whence comes the origin of motion, we need also to determine, about these causes, which is naturally firstand which second” (PA I. 1 639b11–14). Unlike the first two questions, however,

Aristotle turns immediately to the task of answering this one. From 639b15–21,he defends the causal priority of the ‘cause for the sake of which’ (the inappro-priately named ‘final cause’) in things composed by nature and by art. In thesecases, he insists, the nature of the process of coming to be is determined by thegoal toward which it is directed, not the other way around. This can be seen inthe fact that it is the knowledge of the building that is to be built that dictates tothe builder the materials to be used and the precise order of the steps in thebuilding process. He concludes by stressing that ‘that for the sake of which’

and the good (τò καλό ν) are present more in the works of nature than in thoseof art. He then articulates and defends a distinction between unqualified neces-

sity and conditional necessity that is implicit in his account of the priority of thefinal over the efficient cause. In things that come to be, whether in art or innature, what is to be, the end of the developmental process, necessitates thatcertain materials and motive causes be present. If a certain house is to be, bricks,mortar, and timber must be present and must be acted on in specific ways by builders. If a frog is to come to be, the female must provide an egg with theappropriate developmental capacities, and the male must convey the appropri-ate species-specific nutritive/generative heat to that egg. Aristotle’s central pointis that the necessities are imposed by the goal on the material and efficient

causes—the material and efficient causes do not necessitate the productionof the goal.13 With these key ideas in place, he then argues, from 640a1–9,for a distinct manner of demonstration for contexts in which conditional ne-cessity is operative and where the starting points and definitions will identify the goals of the processes that are productive of those goals.14

13. Compare Physics II. 9 200a31–34: “Plainly, then, the necessary in things which are natural is

that which is given as the matter, and the changes it undergoes. The student of nature should state both

causes, but particularly the cause which is what the thing is for; for that is responsible for the matter,

whilst the matter is not responsible for the end” (Charlton 1992).14. Again, it is important to read this passage together with Physics II. 9 200a15–200b8, where

Aristotle contrasts such teleological demonstrations with those in geometry.


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And, finally, with the machinery of teleology integrated with conditionalnecessity, Aristotle has prepared the ground for answering his second question.But he proceeds to the answer in what appears, at least if read without that

preparation in mind, in a puzzling manner. He reminds us that those beforehim (he cites Empedocles in particular) have sought to understand the way thingsare, by investigating how they came to be that way, without asking whether thatis the appropriate way to proceed. Then, as if it were a response to such people,he says: “It seems we should begin, even with generation, precisely as we saidbefore: first one should get hold of the phenomena concerning each kind, andthen state their causes” (PA I. 1 640a12–14). And as if it explicates this claimabout proceeding from grasping the facts to asserting their causes, he immedi-ately goes on: “For even with house-building, it is rather that these things [i.e.,

what happens during coming to be] happen because the form of the house issuch as it is, than that the house is such as it is because it comes to be in this way.For generation is for the sake of being; being is not for the sake of generation”

(640a15–19). But how does this reminder of the conditionally necessary natureof goal-directed processes help us to understand that in studying generation,too, we should first grasp the phenomena and then search for their causes? Thisappears to be a non sequitur.

The solution to this puzzle is to place the argument in its context. What

stands between Aristotle’s statement of the question and its answer is his insis-tence that natural generation has more than one cause, that goal causation has

priority over motive causation, and that the necessity of the materials and mo-tive causes in generation is conditional: they do not necessitate the goal, butthey are necessary conditions for its achievement.15 Given that context, then,it is natural that he is, in the passage we are currently investigating, criticizing his predecessors for explaining the attributes of the developed animal as a ne-cessitated outcome of the motive causes that produced them and insisting thatcoming to be happens as it does because of the goal toward which it is directed.

And this understanding of causal priority will only be achieved by doing a pre-liminary ‘historia ’, of the sort that is reported on in the Historia Animalium,

which after four books systematically surveying the internal and external anatomy of all the major animal kinds, spends three of the remaining books surveying thefacts about generation.16 Thus, after reviewing what Empedocles had missed by assuming that one accounts for (e.g.) the segmented backbone of vertebrates by

15. There is a considerable literature around the question of the nature of this priority. For a recent

survey of the issues at stake that takes a somewhat different view from that defended here, see Leunissen(2009, 99–108).

16. For an example, see the discussion of HA IV. 1 above.


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explaining how they happen to twist as they come to be (640a19–22), Aristotlesummarizes what he takes to be the appropriate method.

Hence it would be best to state that, since this is what it is to be a hu-man being, on account of this it has these [features]; for it cannot be [a human being] without these parts. If one cannot say this, one should say the next best thing, that is, either that in general it cannot be otherwise, or that it is at least good [that it is] thus. And certain other things follow.

And since it is such [as it is], its generation necessarily happens in this way and is such as it is. (This is why this part comes to be first, then that one.)(PA I. 1 640a33–640b2)

Notice that in this passage, the causal relationships among the features of theactual members of a kind must be understood in order to explain the patternsthat one sees in generation. Herein lies the complexity in studying animals andtheir generation that prevented Aristotle from simply affirming that inquiry should proceed here in exactly the same manner as in mathematical astronomy.One actually needs to have a causal understanding of the facts about the actualanimals one is studying in order to move on to a causal understanding of gen-eration. Without that, you will not understand the order in which parts unfold

in development at all. As with our discussion of question 1, it is important to see that these meth-odological norms reflect, or are reflected in, his practice. In Generation of Animals II. 6, having presented his theory of the causal contributions of maleand female to sexual generation, Aristotle is ready to explain the formation of the parts in development. As is so often true at such transitional points in hisscientific writing, however, he opens by worrying over the best way to proceed.

Thus, as many of the instrumental parts as are generative in nature must

be present first (for such [parts] are for the sake of others as their origin), while as many [ parts] as are among things for the sake of another but not generative in nature must be later. Wherefore, it is not easy to distinguish

which among the parts that are for the sake of another are prior, or what itis these parts are for the sake of. The motive parts, being before the end ingeneration, intervene, and distinguishing between the motive and the in-strumental parts is not easy. And yet, it is necessary to inquire what comesto be after what according to this method [κατα ταύτη ν τη ν μεθoδo ν

δει ζητει ν]; for the end is posterior to some things, but prior to others.(742b3–11)


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Because biological generation is goal directed, the order in which the partsappear is dictated by teleologically established priorities; if an instrumental part(e.g., the heart) plays a crucial role throughout the generative process, it must

come to be early on; if some part has a teleological role to play only in thecompleted animal, it will develop later. One cannot simply read off causa-tion from the temporal sequences that one observes taking place during development.17

It is now time to step back from these first three questions, which set theagenda for the rest of PA I, and reflect on the way in which they establish a set of norms of inquiry for the study of animals—norms that, while fully con-sistent with Aristotle’s theory of inquiry in APo. II, are specific to zoologicalinquiry. First, note that these norms are established by means of asking a setof domain-specific, normative questions. By calling them normative, I havein mind that they are questions about how an inquirer, or inquiry, should pro-ceed. They assume an inquiry has alternatives—and indeed, Aristotle often hasin mind ways in which his predecessors have proceeded that he thinks are in-appropriate in various ways and have inhibited progress. This is what I will refer to as establishing an erotetic framework for the ensuing inquiry. In the nextsection, we will see precisely the same feature in the methodologically orientedfirst chapter of De anima . Second, it is also noteworthy that the three questions

are, among other things, about the order of inquiry. Should we start by grasping attributes common to many kinds and then proceed to the more specific;should we, in investigating animals, study the phenomena before inquiring intotheir causes, as the astronomers do; should we study the actual animal and itsparts before studying its development? Finally, question 1 concerns inquiry intothe defining natures of things, while questions 2 and 3 concern the order of inquiry aimed at causal understanding. As I noted, these two themes dominatePA I. Of equal interest is that it is ‘if it is/what it is’ inquiries aimed at definitionand ‘that is is/why it is’ inquiries aimed at causal explanation that Aristotle seeks

to integrate in APo. II. The overarching picture of the epistemic quest has notchanged, but how to keep a quest on track toward understanding requiresnorms that are largely domain determined. In this case, we are dealing with

17. As an aside that underscores Aristotle’s point here, William Harvey takes Aristotle to task in

his Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium for thinking that the first appearance of a pulsing bloody

spot in the developing chick embryo is the heart. For other reasons, Harvey believes that the bloodcarries the causal agency guiding generation and forms before the heart and then produces it —he thus

argues that what Aristotle was actually observing was blood pulsing with the power of life. Aristotle was

in fact correct. More important, Aristotle thought the blood was instrumental in distributing the gener-

ative capacity throughout the organism, while the heart was truly generative. On this disagreement,see Aristotle, HA VI. 3 561a4–15; William Harvey, Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium, 96 ex. 17,

241 ex. 51 (Whitteridge 1981).


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distinctively complex, dynamic, and multilayered investigation of animals in alltheir vast variety and of their development. In order to know how to keep suchan inquiry on track, it is Aristotle’s view that one must consider the specific

nature of the object of inquiry and the nature of our cognitive access to thatobject.

5. How to Investigate the Soul

Famously, the De anima opens with praise for the inquiry into the soul (τω ν περι

της ψυχης ι‛ στoριω ν). Knowledge of beautiful and honorable things can beranked normatively in terms of either their accuracy or the intrinsic value of their objects. On either count, Aristotle tells us, it is with good reason that the inquiry into the soul is placed in the first rank. He claims that such an inquiry contributesgreatly to all truth, but especially truth related to nature.

The introduction to the De anima continues, also famously, by warning thereader that the investigation on which we are embarking is in every way and inall respects the most difficult about which to get hold of any secure belief (402a10–11). How one reads the rest of this chapter turns on how one inter-prets what Aristotle says about the character of this difficulty. The difficult na-ture of the task turns not so much on the fact that we are investigating the soul

as on the fact that we are investigating its ‘

substantial being and essence’, andthere is a question about the proper method for pursuing such an inquiry. Is the

way forward, he asks, “demonstration, division or some other method” (τιςα’ λλη

μεθoδoς; 402a19–20)? It is worth recalling, as one reads this, the dialecticaldevelopment of APo. II. 1–10.18 Recall that Aristotle is, there, asking abouthow inquiries seeking definition (i.e., knowledge of what things are) are relatedto inquiries seeking causes (i.e., knowledge of the reason why). The options onthe table for proceeding from existence to essence are demonstration, which hediscusses and rejects in chapters 3 and 7, and division, which he has already

ruled out in APr. I. 31 as a method of proof and which he rejects as a methodof inquiry leading to proper definition in APo. II. 5.19 From chapter 8 on, hearticulates another method for this inquiry, described, however, at such a levelof abstraction that each domain of study will have to enrich its recommenda-tions by means of a domain-specific set of norms.

And that accounts for the next step in De an. I. 1. Aristotle reminds us that while we might not need to seek a new method of study for each new investigation

18. This in turn has an Academic background since division, in dialogues such as the Phaedrus , Sophist ,and Statesman, is viewed as the primary tool for inquiry into being and essence.

19. Although in chap. 13, he acknowledges that it can be helpful in hunting for the essence.


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of being and essence, we will still need to seek unique starting points: “For thereare different starting points for different things, as in the case of numbers and of planes” (402a21–22). Once again, the problem he is facing derives from the fact

that different investigations will have distinct first principles. All of this reminds us, then, that we are in the philosophical milieu framed

by the Posterior Analytics .20 In any domain of knowledge, we are there told, thenecessary attributes of the objects in that domain are to be demonstrated from a set of starting points that are (on pain of circularity or regress) indemonstrable( APo. I. 3 72b19–24, I. 6 75a29–37; cf. EN VI. 5 1139b29–32). Among theseare principles that identify the being and essence of the primary objects in eachdomain ( APo. II. 10 94a10–12, II. 13 96b7–14). But, since these are not them-selves demonstrated, the question arises, how does one investigate and discover these principles ( APo. I. 2 71b17–19, I. 3 72b23–24, II. 13 96a20–23)? Thisis precisely the issue being identified as problematic, on the opening page of De anima , for however we understand the claim, Aristotle’s baseline assumptionis that to investigate the soul is to investigate some sort of principle (α’ ρχη) of living things (402a6–7).

The next stretch of text lists a number of questions that the person seeking knowledge of the soul must consider. Here, as in the opening pages of PA I,

Aristotle is establishing the erotetic shape of the investigation by asking a set

of normative questions that the inquiry must answer. I will here only have spaceto indicate two of the questions and the striking way that they structure hispositive account of the soul in book II. The primary purpose of doing so isnot to explore the questions and answers in detail but to indicate how differentthey are from the questions that shape the inquiry into animals in PA I. 1.

Question 1

“First of all, perhaps, it is necessary to determine in which of the kinds [the soul

is found], i.e. what it is; I mean, whether soul is a this and a substantial being [τόδε τι και o υ’ σία], a quality, a quantity, or even some other of the categoriesthat have been marked off ” (PA I. 1 402a22–3).21 We need to begin by iden-tifying at the most general level what the soul is, which means determining its

20. A point properly stressed in Sisko (1999).

21. This may seem an odd question. However, as one reads through Aristotle’s careful critique of

previous accounts of the soul in De an. I, it becomes clear that, apart from a number of materialist

theories, the other alternatives are that the soul is a “number ” (404b30), “ratio,” or “harmony ” of somesort (407b28ff.; i.e., in the category of quantity) or that it is movement of some sort (405a10ff.). In his

context, determining how to categorize the soul is an important first step.


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categorical status—precisely the question he turns to answer at the beginning of his ‘most common account of the soul’, the opening paragraph of De anima :“Now since we call one kind of existent substantial being [o υ’ σία], spoken of in

one way as matter, which in itself is not a this , another as shape and form, in virtue of which it already is a this [τόδε τι], and third that composed of these … ”

(De an. II. 1 412a6–9).That is, he begins by identifying the category in which the soul is found but

then notes that there are a number of senses in which something can be in thecategory of substantial being. He argues against seeing the soul as either thematter or the compound and concludes: “The soul must, then, be substantial being qua form of a natural body that has life potentially ” (De an. II. 1 412a19–21).That is, the very first positive step in providing his own account of the soul, inopposition to the views he has reviewed and rejected in book I, is to answer thefirst, categorical, question presented in his methodological introduction. And,by identifying it as belonging in the category of substantial being in the senseof form, he has affirmed that it is substance in the sense of that which makesa substance a this, a τόδε τι.

Question 2

That initial account identifies soul as the form of a body that has life potentially.If the body has life potentially, what is the modal status of soul? Returning to thelist of questions in book I, chapter 1, the second question Aristotle says we mustanswer is precisely that: “ And further, is soul in potentiality or rather some kindof actuality [ε’ ντελεχεια τις]?” (De an. I. 1 402a25–6). There are two featuresof note in Aristotle’s formulation of this question that indicate the care with whichhe is framing the investigation. First, while Aristotle has two terms that often over-lap in reference and are often both translated as “actuality ”—ε’ ντελεχεια andε’ νεργεία—the one used here is his own coinage, and, while ε’ νεργεία often

simply refers to activity or movement, ε’ ντελεχεια connotes a state of comple-

tion or full realization. The contrast here is, then, between potentiality and itsrealization. The second feature of note is the qualification on this term, τις.

Aristotle’s next move in providing a ‘common account of the soul’ at the begin-ning of book II is to assert that the soul is a special kind of actuality.

Picking up from where we left off, then, Aristotle continues: “ And matter ispotentiality, while form is actuality [ε’ ντελεχεια]—and that in two ways, first asknowledge is, and second as studying is” (De an. II. 1 412a10–11). The framing question in De an. I. 1 thus leaves open not only the question of whether soul isto be understood as a potency or an actuality of the body but also the precise


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way in which it is an actuality, if that is what it turns out to be. The relevance of this is that the soul is a ‘first actuality ’, which, viewed in relationship to the body of the animal is its realization—that which makes it a living thing and not

merely a body — while viewed in relationship to the animal’s living activities,it is the capacity for those activities. Those phenomena associated with soul thatmight incline one to classify it on the potential side of the potential/actual dis-tinction are captured by Aristotle’s distinction between two ways of being actualor complete. A person who has the expertise to repair an internal combustionengine is, in a perfectly legitimate sense of the term, an actual auto mechanic(e.g., compared to me), but that person actually repairing an engine is, in anequally legitimate sense, fully actualizing his potential as an auto mechanic. Allof this is captured in the conclusion of this first attempt to provide a commondefinition of the soul, which provides Aristotle’s answers to questions 1 and 2:“But substantial being [o υ’ σία] is actuality [ε’ ντελεχεια]. Soul, then, will be the actuality of a body of this kind. But actuality is spoken of in two ways, first asknowledge and second as study. It is clear then that the soul is actuality as knowledge is ” (412a20–21). This idea of the soul as the living body ’s capacity for a kind of activity accounts for a vast range of facts about ensouled beings, suchas that they remain fully capable of the rapid mobilization of coordinated actionsneeded to, say, successfully elude a predator while they are at rest and doing no

such thing. A living thing in a state of rest is neither merely a body capable of life nor fully engaged in living, and Aristotle’s ‘first’ actuality captures this impor-tant and fundamental fact about life as it had not be captured previously.

6. Conclusion

This essay began by claiming that those who have cast doubt on Aristotle’sclaims for an inductive path to scientific first principles have made their casein part by importing relatively recent ideas about epistemic justification into

an alien context. I have not directly made the case that those standards are,in fact, alien, although their post-Kantian, and more precisely Fregean, originsmake it a plausible claim. But I also claimed at the outset that part of the initialplausibility of their argument rested on the absence of any obvious norms of inductive inquiry in those texts scholars have traditionally turned to in searchof such norms, in particular, the Posterior Analytics II. In the past, I have insistedthat there is more there than people have thought, but I agree that there is notenough. That is, I have here argued, because for Aristotle most of the first prin-ciples on which a science is founded are not only specific to that science butmust be searched for through a rich, empirical engagement with the phenom-ena distinctive to that science. Thus, his most interesting discussions about how


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inquiries aimed at the formulation of first principles are to be guided and ‘kepton track ’ are to be found in the methodological introductions to his scientific

works themselves. Here I have only been able to give the briefest sketch of a case

for this conclusion. I have done that, first, by looking at the centrality of theconcept of μεθoδoς in those introductions and, then, by looking at two suchmethodological introductions, one to his study of animals, the other to his in-quiry into the soul.22 PA I. 1 and De an. I. 1 share a philosophical outlook, andboth operate by the identification of questions that need to be answered in order to get their respective inquiries off on the right track. Precisely because they havethis much in common, it is revelatory how very different they are—especially because one would expect these two inquiries, into the soul and into ensouledbeings, as it were, to have much in common. It is in discussions like these, if anywhere, that we will find Aristotle’s norms of inductive inquiry.

R E F E R E N C E S

Bolton, Robert. 1991. “ Aristotle’s Method in Natural Science: Physics I.” In Aristotle ’ s Physics:

A Collection of Essays , ed. Lindsay Judson, 1–29. Oxford: Clarendon.

Charles, David. 2000. Aristotle on Meaning and Essence . Oxford: Clarendon.

Charlton, William. 1992. Aristotle: “ Physics ” Books I and II . Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon.

Dunlop, Colin. 2003. “Cuttlefish Basics.” Deep Intuition. http://www.tonmo.com/articles/

basiccuttlefish.php.

Ferejohn, Michael. 2009. “Empiricism and the First Principles of Aristotle’s Science.” In A

Companion to Aristotle , ed. Georgios Anagnostopoulos, 66–80. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Frede, Michael. 1996. “ Aristotle’s Rationalism.” In Rationality in Greek Thought , ed. Michael

Frede and Gisela Striker, 157–75. Oxford: Clarendon.

Hardie, R. P., and R. K. Gaye. 1930. Physica . In The Works of Aristotle Translated into

English , ed. W. D. Ross. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon.

Hicks, R. D., trans. 1925. Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers . Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.

Irwin, T. H. 1988. Aristotle ’ s First Principles . Oxford: Clarendon.

Irwin, Terence, and Gail Fine, eds. 1995. Aristotle: Selections . Indianapolis: Hackett.

Lennox, James G. 2005. “Getting a Science Going: Aristotle on Entry Level Kinds.” In Homo

Sapiens und Homo Faber , ed. Gereon Wolters and Martin Carrier. Berlin: de Gruyter.

———. 2010. “ Aristotle’s Natural Science: The Many and the One.” In From Inquiry to

Demonstrative Knowledge: New Essays on Aristotle ’ s “ Posterior Analytics,” ed. James H.

Lesher, 1–25. Published as a special issue of APEIRON: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy

and Science 43, nos. 2–3 ( June/September 2010).

Leunissen, Mariska. 2009. Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle ’ s Science of Nature . Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

22. The term μεθoδoς is not used in the Posterior Analytics .


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Pellegrin, Pierre. 2000. Aristote: Physique . Paris: Flammarion.

Sisko, John. 1999. “On Separating the Intellect from the Body: Arisotle’s De Anima III. 4,

429a10–b5.” Archiv fur Geschicte der Philosophie 81:249–67.

Waterfield, Robin. 1996. Aristotle: Physics . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whitteridge, Gweneth. 1981. William Harvey: Disputations Touching the Generation of

Animals . Oxford: Blackwell.


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