Lecture 8.l  Biology

read sections on net from Aristotle HA and PA (including I.5)

Empedocles: whole forms, etc. ; neckless head during the reign of love
    male and female as tallies
Lucretius on generation from earth uteruses

Aristotle first to provide extensive theory of biological entities
    nature – physis: internal source of change and resistance to change
        explanatory of generation (efficient cause); materials and developed form

Generation of Animals
    efficient and material causes
    historia of male and female sexual organs among the major kinds
        and reasons (good) why each is so disposed


Pangenesis and Epigenesis

two connected questions: do both the male and the female contribute sperm?
        is the sperm drawn from the entire body?
    if the sperm is not drawn from the entire body (pangenesis), then it is reasonable to suppose that both male and female are not contributors.

arguments for pangenesis
    a. orgasm: seems to involve the whole body
    b. mutilated parents produce mutilated children
    c. children are like their parents in whole and in parts
    d. just as there is a producer of the whole, so there is a producer of the part

as for resemblances
    resemblances of hair, nail, voice, gait (from which not semen parts can be taken)
    resemblances of remoter ancestors
    resemblances of different age characteristics  (e.g. receding hair line)

if semen is drawn from all parts of the body
    it is drawn from the homoiomerous parts AND their assemblages
        but how?
    it is whole a homunculus? but then what about the sexual organs; all male sperms  will have penises.
    and if the female contributes a homunculus too, there will be two animals
        and why couldn’t female just reproduce by herself
animals, e.g. insects, produce larvae which are not similar in appearance to themselves
in plants: a cutting can generate a new plant