James Chastek: Aristotle and Darwin on Species: A Note

Plus he comment over at Edward Feser's blog.

Anon,

Mayer's phrasing is ambiguous, and the ambiguity is fatal, since it overlooks the whole point of Aristotle's account of a species and the whole problem of species in the Greeks. Consider when he attributes to Aristotle the idea that "each species possessed and unchanging nature or form"

1.) If he is assuming that "nature" and "form" are the same thing, he is fatally wrong. Nature is matter and form. One can only speak of "nature or form" interchangeably if he is speaking about an angel, or God, which means he is no longer speaking of natural things. Form is unchangeable, to be sure, but a nature is not identified with its form, and therefore not identified with its unchangeable aspect. On the most probable reading of this quotation, Mayer is destroying Aristotle's idea of nature.

2.) Nothing defined with matter can be "rigidly distinct" from anything else defined with matter, for several reasons:

a.) Matter is unintelligible to us in itself, and gives a margin of unintelligibly and fuzziness to any natural thing. Again, this is not particularly controversial stuff in Aristotelian interpretation, just as point on is not.

b.) Aristotle's account of the unchageability of form is inseparable from his understanding of the intelligibility of things. In the measure that we admit species are intelligible, we admit they have an unchageable form as Aristotle understood it. Again, since natural things are not just forms, they are not just intelligible, which Mayer seems to get, but he bungles the idea. Does Darwin doubt that species can be studied? If not, he admits some notion of form is Aristotle's sense to creep in.

c.) Mayer misses everything essential about the ancient debate about forms, change, motion, intelligibility, etc, all of which are all tied together. as far as I can tell, no one in the ancient or Medieval world held the opinion that Meyer attributes to Aristotle, except as a doctrine about the angels.

Throw the book away and read Books 1+ 2 of Aristotle's Physics.