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Aristotle's Biology
Aristotle's biology is the theory of biology, grounded in systematic observation and collection of data, mainly zoological, embodied in Aristotle's books on the science. Many of his observations were made during his stay on the island of Lesbos, including especially his descriptions of the marine biology of the Pyrrha lagoon, now the Gulf of Kalloni. His theory is based on his concept of form, which derives from but is markedly unlike Plato's theory of Forms. The theory describes five major biological processes, namely metabolism, temperature regulation, information processing, embryogenesis, and inheritance. Each was defined in some detail, in some cases sufficient to enable modern biologists to create mathematical models of the mechanisms described. Aristotle's method, too, resembled the style of science used by modern biologists when exploring a new area, with systematic data collection, discovery of patterns, and inference of possible causal explanations from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mechanism (biology)
In the science of biology, a mechanism is a system of causally interacting parts and processes that produce one or more effects. Scientists explain phenomena by describing mechanisms that could produce the phenomena. For example, natural selection is a mechanism of biological evolution; other mechanisms of evolution include genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow. In ecology, mechanisms such as predation and host-parasite interactions produce change in ecological systems. In practice, no description of a mechanism is ever complete because not all details of the parts and processes of a mechanism are fully known. For example, natural selection is a mechanism of evolution that includes countless, inter-individual interactions with other individuals, components, and processes of the environment in which natural selection operates. Characterizations/ definitions Many characterizations/definitions of mechanisms in the philosophy of science/biology have been provided in the past de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Roman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year. The Ancient Greek word ''Hellas'' (, ''Hellás'') was gradually recognized as the name for Greece, from which the word ''Hellenistic'' was derived. "Hellenistic" is distinguished from "Hellenic" in that the latter refers to Greece itself, while the former encompasses all ancient territories under Greek influence, in particular the East after the conquests of Alexander the Great. After the Macedonian invasion of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC and its disintegration shortly after, the Hellenistic kingdoms were established throughout south-west Asia (Seleucid Empire, Kingdom of Pergamon), north-east Africa ( Ptolemaic Kingdom) and South Asia (Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, Indo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire from 336 to 323 BC (though this excludes a number of Greek city-states free from Alexander's jurisdiction in the western Mediterranean, around the Black Sea, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica). In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historia Plantarum (Theophrastus)
Theophrastus's ''Enquiry into Plants'' or ''Historia Plantarum'' ( grc-gre, Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορία, ''Peri phyton historia'') was, along with his mentor Aristotle's ''History of Animals'', Pliny the Elder's '' Natural History'' and Dioscorides's '' De materia medica'', one of the most important books of natural history written in ancient times, and like them it was influential in the Renaissance. Theophrastus looks at plant structure, reproduction and growth; the varieties of plant around the world; wood; wild and cultivated plants; and their uses. Book 9 in particular, on the medicinal uses of plants, is one of the first herbals, describing juices, gums and resins extracted from plants, and how to gather them. ''Historia Plantarum'' was written some time between c. 350 BC and c. 287 BC in ten volumes, of which nine survive. In the book, Theophrastus described plants by their uses, and attempted a biological classification based on how plants reproduced, a fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theophrastus
Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routledge, 2015, p. 8. His given name was Tyrtamus (); his nickname (or 'godly phrased') was given by Aristotle, his teacher, for his "divine style of expression". He came to Athens at a young age and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death, he attached himself to Aristotle who took to Theophrastus in his writings. When Aristotle fled Athens, Theophrastus took over as head of the Lyceum. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-six years, during which time the school flourished greatly. He is often considered the father of botany for his works on plants. After his death, the Athenians honoured him with a public funeral. His successor as head of the school was Strato of Lampsacus. The interests of Theophr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On The Soul
''On the Soul'' (Greek: , ''Peri Psychēs''; Latin: ''De Anima'') is a major treatise written by Aristotle c. 350 BC. His discussion centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. Thus plants have the capacity for nourishment and reproduction, the minimum that must be possessed by any kind of living organism. Lower animals have, in addition, the powers of sense-perception and self-motion (action). Humans have all these as well as intellect. Aristotle holds that the soul ('' psyche'', ψυχή) is the ''form'', or ''essence'' of any living thing; it is not a distinct substance from the body that it is in. It is the possession of a soul (of a specific kind) that makes an organism an organism at all, and thus that the notion of a body without a soul, or of a soul in the wrong kind of body, is simply unintelligible. (He argues that some parts of the soul — the intellect — can exist without the bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parts Of Animals
''Parts of Animals'' (or ''On the Parts of Animals''; Greek Περὶ ζῴων μορίων; Latin ''De Partibus Animalium'') is one of Aristotle's major texts on biology. It was written around 350 BC. The whole work is roughly a study in animal anatomy and physiology; it aims to provide a scientific understanding of the parts ( organs, tissues, fluids, etc.) of animals and asks whether these parts were designed or arose by chance. Chronology The treaty consists of four books whose authenticity has not been questioned, although its chronology is disputed. The consensus in placing it before the ''Generation of animals'' and perhaps later to ''History of animals''. There are indications that Aristotle placed this book at the beginning of his biological works. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Progression Of Animals
''Progression of Animals'' (or ''On the Gait of Animals''; el, Περὶ πορείας ζῴων; la, De incessu animalium) is one of Aristotle's major texts on biology. It gives details of gait and movement in various kinds of animals, as well as speculating over the structural homologies among living things.Hall, Brian, Fins into Limbs: Evolution, Development, and Transformation, University of Chicago Press (2007), p. 1 Aristotle sets out to "discuss the parts which are useful to animals for their movement from place to place, and consider why each part is of the nature which it is, and why they possess them, and further the differences in the various parts of one and the same animal and in those of animals of different species compared with one another" (704a1-4). ''Progression of Animals'' illustrates Aristotle's teleological approach to animal biology. Texts and translations * * Greek text and English translation by E.S. Forster (Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Movement Of Animals
''Movement of Animals'' (or ''On the Motion of Animals''; Greek Περὶ ζῴων κινήσεως; Latin ''De Motu Animalium'') is one of Aristotle's major texts on biology. It sets out the general principles of animal locomotion. Pneuma All animals "possess an inborn spirit (''pneuma sumphuton'') and exercise their strength in virtue of it." (703a10). This inborn spirit is used to explain desire (''orexis''), which is classified as the "central origin (''to meson''), which moves by being itself moved." (703a5-6). Aristotle furthers this idea of being a "middle cause" by furnishing the metaphor of the movement of the elbow, as it relates to the immobility of the shoulder (703a13). The inborn ''pneuma'' is, likewise, tethered to the soul, or as he says here, ''tēn'' ''arche tēn psuchikēn, "''the origin of the soul," the soul as the center of causality. This "spirit" is not the soul itself but a limb of the soul that helps it move. The inborn spirit causes movement in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generation Of Animals
The ''Generation of Animals'' (or ''On the Generation of Animals''; Greek: ''Περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως'' (''Peri Zoion Geneseos''); Latin: ''De Generatione Animalium'') is one of the biological works of the Corpus Aristotelicum, the collection of texts traditionally attributed to Aristotle (384 – 322BC). The work provides an account of animal reproduction, gestation and heredity. Content ''Generation of Animals'' consists of five books, which are themselves split into varying numbers of chapters. Most editions of this work categorise it with Bekker numbers. In general, each book covers a range of related topics, however there is also a significant amount of overlap in the content of the books. For example, while one of the two principal topics covered in book I is the function of semen (''gone'', ''sperma''), this account is not finalised until partway through book II. Book I (715a - 731b) Chapter 1 begins with Aristotle claiming to have already addressed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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