Research Catalog

Title

Life concepts from Aristotle to Darwin : on vegetable souls / Lucas John Mix.

Author

Mix, Lucas John

Publication

• Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, [2018]
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 273 pages; 22 cm

Summary

This book traces the history of life-concepts, with a focus on the vegetable souls of Aristotle, investigating how they were interpreted and eventually replaced by evolutionary biology. Philosophers have long struggled with the relationship between physics, physiology, and psychology, asking questions of organization, purpose, and agency. For two millennia, the vegetable soul, nutrition, and reproduction were commonly used to understand basic life and connect it to "higher" animal and vegetable life. Cartesian dualism and mechanism destroyed this bridge and left biology without an organizing principle until Darwin. Modern biology parallels Aristotelian vegetable life-concepts, but remains incompatible with the animal, rational, subjective, and spiritual life-concepts that developed through the centuries. Recent discoveries call for a second look at Aristotle's ideas - though not their medieval descendants. Life remains an active, chemical process whose cause, identity, and purpose is self-perpetuation. -- Provided by Publisher.

Subjects

• Life
• Soul

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Chapter 1. Vegetable Souls? -- Goals for the Book -- Recurrent Themes -- Composition -- Causal Processes -- Activity and Agency -- Individuality -- Purpose -- Platonic and Aristotelian Approaches -- References. Part I Birth -- Chapter 2: Greek Life: Psyche and Early Life-Concepts -- Shades of Homer-- Life Before Plato -- Returning from the Dead -- Common Life -- Multiple Souls -- The Stuff of Life -- Soul Particles -- Cosmic Sou l-- References. Chapter 3. Strangely Moved: Appetitive Souls in Plato -- Forms and Particulars -- Lasting Souls -- Ruling Souls -- A Continuum of Souls -- Achieving Harmony -- World Order.
• Part II Development -- Chapter 7. The Breath of Life: Nephesh in Hebrew Scriptures -- Hellenistic and Hebrew Thought -- Hebrew Scriptures -- A Second Life -- Philo of Alexandria -- References. Chapter 8. Life After Life: Spiritual Life in Christianity -- A Note on Interpretation -- Two Lives, Two Deaths -- Spirit Versus Flesh? -- Two Deaths -- Two Births -- Christian Identity -- Tertullian -- Origen -- References. Chapter 9. Invisible Seeds: Life-Concepts in Augustine -- The Dual Creation -- Biology -- The Hierarchy of Life -- The Inner Person -- The Rational Animal -- The Will -- Two Deaths, Two Resurrections -- References. Chapter 10. Aristotle Returns: A Second Medieval Synthesis -- Aristotle Reinterpreted -- The Falsafah -- Ibn Sînâ -- Al-Ghazâlî -- Ibn Rushd -- Maimonides -- References. Chapter 11. Life Divided: Vegetable Life in Aquinas -- Albert the Great -- Thomas Aquinas -- Hierarchical Creation -- Multiple Births -- Will and Intellect -- Resurrection -- Hierarchy -- References.
• Part III: Death. Chapter 12. Mechanism Displaces the Soul -- William of Ockham -- The Protestant Reformation -- The Mechanical Philosophy -- The Machine Metaphor -- Ontological Elimination -- Etiological Reduction -- Pierre Gassendi -- René Descartes -- Cartesian Biology -- Life in Space -- References. Chapter 13. Divided Hopes: Physics Versus Metaphysics -- How to Study Life -- Bacon-Physics and Metaphysics -- Leibniz-Matter and Monads -- Kant-Phenomena and Noumena -- Design Arguments -- Irreconcilable Differences -- Idealists -- David Hume -- The Iatromechanists -- Reducible Life -- Irreducible Life -- References. Chapter 14. Ghosts in the Machine: Vitalism -- The Animists -- The Iatrochemists -- The (Iatro)Vitalists -- Vital Forces and Fluids -- German Idealism -- Georg Hegel -- Friedrich Nietzsche -- The Two Natures -- Emergence -- References. Chapter 15. The Same and Different: Early Theories of Evolution -- Clearing the Path -- Evolution -- Comte du Buffon -- Erasmus Darwin -- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck -- References. Chapter 16. Vegetable Significance: Evolution by Natural Selection -- Charles Darwin -- Darwin on Human Uniqueness -- Darwin on the Environment as Cause -- Alternative Evolutions -- Herbert Spencer -- Alfred Russel Wallace -- References.
• Part IV: New Life. Chapter 17. "Vegetables" Versus Modern Plants -- The Tree of Life -- Modern Plants -- Sensation in Plants -- Memory and Will in Plants -- The Value of Vegetable Life -- References. Chapter 18. Vegetable Individuality: The Organismal Self -- Regulators -- Replicators -- Biological Individuals -- Genetic Individuality and Agency -- Biological Nominalism -- Population Thinking -- Non-exclusive Organisms -- References. Chapter 19. Animal Individuality: The Subjective Self -- Processes with a Back End -- All or Nothing -- Alternate Interiority -- Evolutionary Refinements in Individuality -- Evolved Intention -- Panpsychism -- References. Chapter 20. What can be revived (and What Cannot) -- Natural Selection and Effiecient Causes -- Causal Nexus and Final Causes -- Causal Nexus in Modern Biology -- Pragmatic Formal Causes -- Categories, Not Causes -- References.

Call Number

JFD 19-650

ISBN

• 9783319960463
• 3319960466

LCCN

• 2018948656
• 10.1007/978-3-319-96047-0

OCLC

1057372872

Author

Mix, Lucas John, author.

Title

Life concepts from Aristotle to Darwin : on vegetable souls / Lucas John Mix.

Publisher

Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, [2018]

Copyright Date

©2018

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Standard Identifier

10.1007/978-3-319-96047-0 doi

Research Call Number

JFD 19-650