Aristotle 's Organizational System For Living Organisms Through His Work

In the novel, The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan tells the intriguing story of how plants are domesticated from the perspective of the plant with regards to four specific plants.. The four plants he chose for discussion are the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. As he discusses the domestication of these plants, his overall focus is the desire that each of these plants have to us as humans. Pollan has written books and magazine articles among other pieces of literature that discuss the relationship between plants and humans. Throughout this informational text, Pollan tries to keep the perspective from the “plant’s-eye view of the world,” but he often slips into Pollan’s eye view of the world. As he talks about experiences that he has had with each of these plants and gives a little bit of their history, it was often hard to stay focused on the topic that he was trying to convey. However, I found that the perspectives that Pollan brings up are interesting to think about. The Botany of Desire was an interesting journal type informational novel that didn’t quite live up to my expectations of what it could have been.

It was discussed that primary substances are essential to have other substances exist. In The Categories, Aristotle talks about the meaning and the importance of primary substances. Aristotle states that primary substances “are most properly called substances in virtue of the fact that they are the entities which underlie everything else” (Categories, 3). In other words, primary substances are neither predicated in a sentence or present in the subject. An example of a primary substance that was given in Categories was the individual man whereas the group would be considered the secondary substance. The man is considered to be a primary substance because man can exist without a subject. On the other hand, the group where a man belongs to is

5.) What are the three different ways of life Aristotle speaks of in Book I? Which is the highest or best? Why is this the case in Aristotle’s perspective?

and is therefore not thinking in the way humans, or perhaps other living things do. Humans exhibit

who recognized that plants could be easily domesticated. It was because of the domestication of

Descartes’ argue that mind is better known than body by first claiming humans as fundamentally rational, meaning “a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling,” ( Descartes, 19) he therefore argues that humans have the ability to know their proper minds clearly and distinctly. He proposes the conception of the mind where the imagination and the senses are also inherent capabilities of the body (faculties), specifically powers of the mind.

The most influential person in the pre-modern age in World History is Aristotle. Aristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many different subjects, including physics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and even zoology. Aristotle was one of the most important philosophers in Western thought, and was one of the first to systematize philosophy and science. Aristotle questioned the nature of the world and of human belief, knowledge, and thought. He invented a method for arguing according to rules of logic, but later applied his method to problems in the fields of psychology, biology, and physics. His thinking on physics and science had a

In Aristotle's Politics, he focuses much on the regimes of an oligarchy and of a democracy. Democracies exists when the free and poor, being a majority, have authority to rule, and have an equal share in the city. Oligarchies exists when the few wealthy and better born have authority and grant benefits in proportion to a person's wealth (1280a:10-30;1290a:5-10).

In Meditation six: Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body, Rene Descartes wrote of his distinctions between the mind and the body, first by reviewing all things that he believed to be true, then assessing the causes and later calling them into doubt, and then finally by considering what he must now believe. By analyzing Descartes’ writing, this paper will explicate Descartes’ view on bodies and animals, and if animals have minds. Before explicating the answer to those questions, Descartes’ distinctions between the mind and the body should first be summarized and explained.

One of the most controversial topics in modern philosophy revolves around the idea of non-human animals being considered human people. Controversy over what makes up an actual person has been long debated. However, society deems it as a set of characteristics. The average person normally does not realize how complicated a question this is, and in fact many scientists, philosophers, and individuals will side differently on this specific topic. I personally do not believe that animals are capable of being human people, but throughout this argumentative paper I will address critical views presented from multiple philosophers on why this seems to be the case.

He is the only religious animal” (twain). Men have the greatest mental capacity amongst all creatures on this planet, and men are are in a whole different level compared the animals. This proves the thesis true because although in some ways species can be alike, but the overall study of this proves the value between men and

Households (or families) are one of the key elements of society for both Aristotle and Plato. Family is the first form in society of association between men as it answers man’s natural needs, and instincts. As Aristotle explains, the coupling “which necessity gives rise [to] is that between those who are unable to exist without one another,” in other words man is a being that is, by nature, social and political. Association is a natural phenomenon, which declines in interdependent forms such as the family, the village, and finally the city. However, it would be an error to assume that each form is not fundamentally different from one another. In Politics, Aristotle criticizes Plato’s assumption that a city must strive to be a unit, because “beyond a certain point, city will be reduced to family and family to individual.” [Book II, 1261a] Indeed, if a city state were to strive towards unity it would resemble a household, since he holds the household to be of higher degree in unity, but by assumption, a city state is different that a household.

In the lower links of the chain you find mere existence, the elements, liquids, metals, minerals. Inanimate objects with no apparent life. Then secondly we find existence and life together. This is the vegetative world. Which is obviously a living organism, only apparently lacking cognition. Lastly we group together creatures and animals, those with existence, life, and feeling.

According to Aristotle actuality states that everything is something and is becoming something else. Potentiality is the potential of the item in its path of changing into something else. The path of changing into something else has a “final end”. The final end varies between soulful things. There are three different types of souls that determine function and the potentiality for the final end. The three types of souls are nutritive, sensitive, and rational. A nutritive soul is for growth and reproduction, and example plants. A sensitive soul indicates perception and feeling and example is animals. A rational soul contains intellect and rational thought, and example is humans. These show that anything that has a higher degree of the soul also has all the lower degrees. All living things grow, nourish themselves, and reproduce. Animals not only do that but move and perceive. Humans do all the above and reason, as well. Aristotle says the soul is noncontinuous and is only the condition or state something is

Aristotle asks many what questions when talking about what is a living being. He discusses us as a specific type of animals and how it relates to animals, plants and nonliving things. There is an hierarchy when discussing the differences between these things. For instance, all living things can ensouled destructible mobile substances. This means, all living substances can die and their body can disintegrate when no soul is in them. The essential features of “being an animal” is that it has a soul but not a rational soul compared to a human being. As stated in Arwin and Fine (1996), “An animal is a living item that has perception.” (413b1-5) These perceptions state that the animals have wants, desires,