Workshop in Ancient Philosophy (Thursday - Week 1, TT25)

Abstract: Aristotle recommends in De Partibus Animalium I that we explain living things in terms of activities. I examine two consequences of this view here, one methodological and one metaphysical. The methodological consequence is that this leads Aristotle to prioritize definitions of kinds such as fish and bird—and ultimately, even higher taxa such as animal and plant—over definitions of individual species. The metaphysical consequence concerns the way in which explanations in terms of activities qualify as causal explanations. I suggest that Aristotle embraced activity-based definitions in part because they capture a feature of living things’ natures that alternative views do not and therefore qualify as more causally complete. I end with a brief discussion of why this sort of view might be attractive from a contemporary perspective.