Abstract
Aristotle has traditionally been cast as the arch-enemy of all things mechanistic. Given the dichotomy long thought to exist between mechanistic and teleological schools of thought, there is a satisfying irony in discovering veins of apparently ‘mechanistic’ thought within the work of the definitive teleologist. Several waves of scholarship in the past century have argued, from different angles, for mechanistic interpretations of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. The present generation is no exception: in the last decade, Jean De Groot, Monte Johnson, and Tiberiu Popa have variously argued that a mechanistic vein can be found in Aristotle’s work, despite his undeniable teleological credentials. This paper explores the assumptions—some of them open to question—that accompany such advocacy. It will urge some terminological refinements, and turn a skeptical lens on some aspects of these projects. Nonetheless, it will stress that they open promising lines of inquiry, avoiding some of the limitations of earlier ventures into this territory.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- First Wave Feminism: Craftswomen in Plato’s Republic
- Cosmology and Anankê in the Timaeus and Our Knowledge of the Forms
- Aristotle’s New Clothes: Mechanistic Readings of the Master Teleologist
- The Texture of Aristotle’s Ontology
- Pollux on the Anatomy of the Spine (Onom. 2.44–5, 130–2, 178–80) and the Modern Lexica
- Life and Lifeforms in Early Greek Atomism
- Solar Motion and Lunar Eclipses in Philolaus’ Cosmological System
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- First Wave Feminism: Craftswomen in Plato’s Republic
- Cosmology and Anankê in the Timaeus and Our Knowledge of the Forms
- Aristotle’s New Clothes: Mechanistic Readings of the Master Teleologist
- The Texture of Aristotle’s Ontology
- Pollux on the Anatomy of the Spine (Onom. 2.44–5, 130–2, 178–80) and the Modern Lexica
- Life and Lifeforms in Early Greek Atomism
- Solar Motion and Lunar Eclipses in Philolaus’ Cosmological System