Abstract
Within PA IV, two principles, which have been present in various ways in the entire unfolding of the argument, become more fully illuminated: the division of labor principle and the principle of multiple functions. These two principles appear to be connected with the two standards at work throughout the investigation, the good and the necessary.
The division of labor principle assumes a one-to-one relationship between organ or part and function (ala the Republic’s one man, one job notion). It is founded on some understanding of the best order. The multiple functions principle recognizes that parts often have many functions packed into them—the Delphian knife notion. This principle recognizes necessity in nature. These two principles seem to be incompatible, but there is a necessary movement from the first to the second, entailing a movement from a reliance on the best to a recognition of necessity.
Book IV offers the test to gauge how one understands the whole argument of the PA. The reader is confronted with a passage about the placement of mouths in sharks and other pisciverous fish. Many sharks have sub-terminal mouths, which are not at the end of the snout, but oriented downwards. Why is this so? Aristotle first suggests that it appears (phainetai) that nature made it this way so as to preserve other animals from them; it takes time for these sharks to roll over to feed on smaller fish and in this time the prey escapes. If indeed Nature makes nothing in vain, this would be a way to account for the placement of this part. However, Aristotle offers two other reasons, which I would suggest do not rely on the making Nature, why the arrangement of the shark’s mouth might be positioned in this way: (1) to prevent the shark from overeating and thus saving it from itself; and (2) the shape of the snout made it necessary that the mouth be positioned this way. The movement of this particular passage is (1) from what appears (phainetai) to be from the perspective of a broad teleology; (2) to what is best for the animal with this part; (3) to what is necessary given the arrangement and character of other parts of that animal.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The fact that Aristotle associates the presence or absence of the gall bladder with particular regions, in this case Naxos and Euboea, might be suggestive of some understanding of geographic variation of a kind. In addition, the fact that sheep are domesticated animals, Aristotle might be pointing out the variation between regions that arises through domestication.
- 2.
See below the discussion of residues which are emitted by an animal due to some necessity but which serve a good purpose (679a26 ff.).
- 3.
The fact that only mammals have omentum is something which Aristotle got wrong.
- 4.
It is perhaps surprising that Aristotle recognized the sacks that surround the heart and lungs and the omentum as things to be puzzled over in light of a concern with the parts of animals. One could imagine a researcher who quickly disposed of these coverings as unimportant, but not Aristotle.
- 5.
Kullman (1985) includes the omentum in a very interesting discussion that is directly related to much of what I have been arguing. “According to Aristotle,” Kullman notes, “the genesis of the thick membrane of the omentum is an inevitable concomitant of the genesis of the intestines…afterwards the omentum is given the function to improve digestion. But this function is only secondary. The same applies to the function of preserving the heat, which is done by the fat of the kidney, the protective function of the brows and eyelashes, the protective function of the horns of bovid animals, the protective function of the thick hair on man’s head and to the milk of the pregnant female. All these parts did not originally tend towards the end which they now serve” (p. 174).
- 6.
Dudley (2012) might view this as consistent with his claim that “(m)aterial necessity or necessity in accordance with nature (anagkê kata phusin), by which a thing moves in accordance with its material nature, is—logically—also absolute necessity” (p. 103).
- 7.
Lennox (2001) says of the omentum that its role in food preparation “is mechanical in the extreme: being fat, it is hot, and heat aids in digestion. Its function is served simply by dint of its material nature” (p. 291). I want to say, in addition, that the efficient cause of the omentum is simply a matter of its material nature.
- 8.
Lennox (2001) points out that this claim about the bloodless is problematic given what Aristotle says about privative characteristics being part of the defining account of substantial being of a certain class (pp. 294–295). As Lennox points out (p. 295), Aristotle is explicit in recognizing a nutritive fluid in all animals.
- 9.
Aristotle’s discussion of the parts of insects (e.g. 682a12, 683a30) seems very reminiscent of the discussion of fleas in the Clouds. The examination of the parts of animals can be held up as funny; it is only when one points out the enormous benefit that comes to humans with the knowledge of the examination and study of animals (e.g. raising of livestock, catching fish and other food items, using lions and tigers for sporting events in the Coliseum) does it present itself as serious to the political world. Is this one way in which the study of the organic world is political? In other words, can we take the scene from the Clouds to be a warning to couch the investigation in terms of what is useful for the polis?
- 10.
This, and other instances in PA IV, is a case in which the organism at hand is compared to birds. Not only does Aristotle use humans as the standard by which to understand certain things about certain organisms, but when it is appropriate, creatures like birds or elephants (e.g. 683a) can be used as a point of contrast.
- 11.
On this notion, Ogle notes that: “Here we have a distinct statement of the advantage of division of labour in the animal body; a truth which Milne Edwards thought he was the first to enunciate” (note 15, p. 230. See also Tipton 2001).
- 12.
While I write this, I have several urchin spines embedded in my foot, serving as a reminder to the truth of Aristotle’s observation.
- 13.
This is the so-called “lantern of Aristotle” (HA 531a5). Lennox (1983) examines closely the anatomy of the sea urchin to resolve a philological question about a passage in the History of Animals (531a3) that draws some analogy between urchins and lanterns. (I would add parenthetically that Lennox’s interpretation of the passage would, I believe, be strengthened by noting the discussion of the fact that a shell, in crustaceans and ostracoderms generally, not only can protect the innards, but a faintly burning heat (PA 654a8).) So, close inspection of the specific organisms in question can prove very useful in understanding Aristotle’s language and, as I would suggest, his thought.
- 14.
In PA I, there is a point at which motion is responsible for the division of what looks like a one into many. But that case deals only with the classification, here motion seems to be actually dividing up the organism.
- 15.
See Lennox (2001, p. 310) for concerns about the argument regarding the use of the lobster claws for locomotion.
- 16.
The specialized function of the hectocotylus arm of the octopus was one of those things discovered by Aristotle and then only re-discovered more than 2,000 years later.
- 17.
This would be to understand the preposition “dia” with the accusative as indicating cause.
- 18.
“General sense” replaces phronesis in the new formulation.
- 19.
Isn’t this the same principle which Socrates expresses in the basket in the Clouds?
- 20.
Isn’t this the riddle of the Sphinx, man as the animal which moves on four legs, two legs and then three legs?
- 21.
The idea that a whole divided into parts might serve as a kind of protection against the infection or damage to the whole is also stated as applying to the kidneys (671b5 ff.).
- 22.
Even here the discussion of the mammae is a bit skewed insofar as the nourishment of the offspring is said to be an additional function (heteron ergon), as opposed to the primary function. Of course, perhaps it is just an additional function because many male animals have mammae and they are obviously not used for the nourishment of off-spring (see 688b30 ff.).
- 23.
Ogle suggests that this is one of the few foreign creatures that Aristotle studied alive.
- 24.
The word for “trunk” is proboskis, which is also used for the tongue-like appendage of the fly and the tentacles of cephalopods (Lennox 2001, p. 236).
- 25.
It seems as if there are always interesting cases of animals in the muck between land and water, e.g. crocodiles, elephants, egg-bearing tetrapods, and these birds. The in-betweenness of the habitat produces unique and interesting kinds.
- 26.
I wonder if there is a difference between parts varying according to life (kata tous bious) versus variation according to logos (kata tous logos). The formulation “according to logos” seems to better support the notion of some kind of maker, a Nature that makes, whereas the other formulation puts the emphasis of life. Do these two point to different causal accounts?
- 27.
Again, the organisms that straddle the wet and the dry seem to offer illuminating examples in the causal analysis of the parts of animals.
- 28.
Are the hands and arms of humans considered “motion points”? This would make the discussion of hands in terms of thinking and the arts (687a7 ff.) very interesting.
- 29.
In his note in the Loeb, Peck says “The chief difficulty in translating this passage is due to the word tonikoi, a jargon-adjective in –ikos, which seems to have been suggested to Aristotle’s mind by the similar adjective ptêtikon in the next line.”
- 30.
The preposition “dia” with the accusative tense suggests a causal relationship.
- 31.
De Incessu 709b7, 708a9ff, and cf. PA 690b16.
- 32.
See Respiration 476a1, 480b13 for a statement of the causes. Again, why aren’t the causes discussed here in the PA, which is the stated purpose of the treatise?
References
Dudley, John. 2012. Aristotle’s concept of chance: Accidents, cause, necessity, and determinism. Albany: SUNY.
Kullman, Wolfgang. 1985. Different concepts of the final cause in Aristotle. In Aristotle on nature and living things, ed. Gotthelf, A., pp. 169–175
Lennox, James G. 1983. Aristotle’s Lantern. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 103: 147.
Thompson, D’Arcy. 1936. A glossary of Greek birds. London: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, Darcy W. 1947. A glossary of Greek fishes. London: Oxford University Press.
Tipton, Jason. 2001. Division and combination of labor in Aristotle’s biological writings. The Journal of Bioeconomics 3: 51–55.
Tipton, Jason. 2008. Aristotle’s observations on the foraging interactions of the red mullet. Archives of Natural History 35(1): 164–171.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tipton, J.A. (2014). The Division and Combination of Labor. In: Philosophical Biology in Aristotle's Parts of Animals. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 26. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01421-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01421-0_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-01420-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01421-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)