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Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquettePhilosophy Faculty Research and Publications Philosophy, Department of1-1-2011Review of Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle'sScience of Nature by Mariska LeunissenOwen GoldinMarquette University, owen.goldin@marquette.eduBryn Mawr Classical Review, 2011.04.51. Publisher link. © 2011 Bryn Mawr Commentaries. Usedwith permission.5/31/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.04.51http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011-04-51.html 1/5 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.04.51Mariska Leunissen, Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle'sScience of Nature.   Cambridge/New York:  CambridgeUniversity Press, 2010.  Pp. xiii, 250.  ISBN 9780521197748. $85.00.     Reviewed by Owen Goldin, Marquette University(Owen.Goldin@Marquette.edu) PreviewMany of those studying Aristotle’s philosophy of science during the lasttwenty five years have focused on determining the extent to which the modelof scientific inquiry and explanation developed in the Posterior Analytics isreflected in the record of Aristotle’s own researches in the physical sciences.There have been two main challenges. First, the biological and otherphysical treatises are put forward in a meandering way, offering anapparently disorganized mix of observations, consideration of opposingtheories, classifications, and partial explanations that is far from the orderlyarray of principles, premises derived from principles, and demonstrativesyllogisms, which one might expect from APo.. Second, many of theexplanations that are offered in these treatises are teleological, explainingregularities in nature on the basis of how they serve or are necessitated bythe good of various natural kinds. But such explanations do not seem to beeasily cast in demonstrative form. Aristotle’s one attempt at making sense ofhow this would work, in APo. 2.11 has been roundly criticized as unclear atbest and an incoherent failure at worst.Gotthelf, Lennox, and others have shown how the first problem is lessformidable than first appears.1 Aristotle can be seen working his way todefinitions, from which the basic explanatory principles can be derived; hedoes so by developing fragmentary explanations, which allow him todetermine and isolate certain core explanatory facts; the completion andintegration of these, and the facts they explain, within the context of a wholescience, remains an incomplete project. It is the second project that has5/31/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.04.51http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011-04-51.html 2/5proven more recalcitrant, and is Leunessen’s focus in the present study.There are two major aspects to the project. The first is to isolate and clarifythe various explanatory principles concerning the workings of finalcausation in regard to the structure and activities of natural beings. Thesecond is to clarify what Aristotle means when he says that, even in regardto teleological explanations, the explanation (aition) is revealed through themiddle term (APo. 2.11 94a20-94a23).Leunissen begins with the defense given in Phys. 2.8 of the generalapplicability to the natural realm of teleological explanations. She offerspreliminary distinctions that will feature prominently in what follows.Primary teleology “involves the realization of a preexisting potential forform through stages shaped by conditional necessity, where the fully realizedform constitutes the final cause of the process” (18). In this case, a natureserves as an efficient cause that is responsible for certain features of thatwhich has the nature, which features are necessary preconditions for theexistence of that form. Thus, the nature of a bird requires the existence ofwings; a bird’s possession of wings is due to an instance of primaryteleology. In a case of secondary teleology, what is explained is not anecessary condition for form; it is rather the existence of certain features thataid or facilitate the performance of certain functions that are determined bythe natural form. The efficient cause of these features is something externalto that natural form; they often arise through “material necessity.” But, giventhe existence of these features, they are employed or adapted in a way that isconducive to the accomplishment of the natural good appropriate to thatkind. In both cases, Leunissen argues, we are dealing with temporalprocesses in which earlier stages cause and thereby lead to later stages. It isthe later stage that is the goal, and thus the final cause of the process.Accordingly, the cause that leads to and is responsible for the goal will be aformal or efficient cause, not the final cause which is the goal itself. It willbe this formal or efficient cause that will appear in a demonstration as amiddle term; the final cause will feature as the major term.The distinction between primary and secondary teleology allows Leunissento account for what many have taken to be a puzzling aspect of Aristotle’sargument in Phys. 2.8 that regular connections cannot be the result ofchance: only teleological causation can account for them. His example of aregular connection is how the rains come in winter, the time (in Greece) atwhich the crops grow. This suggests that Aristotle holds that the rain is forthe sake of the crops. This has struck many as a very difficult result, as itsuggests either an un-Aristotelian holism or his attributing some sort ofcausal pull of the crops on the rain, which would mean that the physical5/31/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.04.51http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011-04-51.html 3/5processes internal to evaporation and condensation are insufficient toaccount for the rainfall. Leunissen instead suggests that this is a case inwhich a certain teleological activity (that of the human art of agriculture)takes advantage of a process occurring through material causation in order tofacilitate a goal that is not that of the material process per se: it is a case ofsecondary causation. In this way, she is able to account for the clearimplication of the text (the growing of the crops is indeed a final cause of therain) without attributing to Aristotle the view that facilitating the crops is anessential aspect of the rainwater or its descent.Chapter 2 clarifies the teleological role that Aristotle gives to soul. The soulof a certain kind of living being is a formal cause that determines the naturalgoals that it has as a matter of primary teleology. The ensouled body isgeared towards the performance of those goals in a way that displays bothprimary and secondary teleology. The biological works build on thisunderstanding of soul.The third chapter presents evidence concerning the distinction betweenprimary and secondary teleology from within Aristotle’s own biologicalwritings. Leunissen is not the first to point out that Aristotle takes biologicalexplanations that identify a certain feature as crucially necessary for a goalto differ in kind from those that indicate that certain features are “for thebetter” and that the latter often involve the use of materials that aregenerated at the level of material necessity (which do not themselves alwaysnecessitate the parts and functions that they necessarily presuppose), but thedistinction has never been laid out so clearly before. One of hercontributions is to point out that those biological features that are notnecessary but contribute to an organism’s good can be further subdividedinto those that make a contribution to necessary functions (“subsidiaryparts”) and those (which she calls “luxury parts”) that do not benefit theorganism in this way, but rather “contribute to the well being of animals insome other way” (92). An example is the horns of a goat; a goat can livewithout horns, but it lives better with horns, as it is then better able to defenditself. The distinction between contributions to necessary functions andcontributions to well being has a certain intuitive plausibility, but exactlywhat it amounts to is unclear to me. Presumably, self-protection makes acontribution to vital functions: an animal unable to defend itself againstpredators would presumably not be able to engage in basic life functions likenutrition or reproduction. Perhaps Leunissen wants to say that, unlike luxuryparts, subsidiary parts themselves are directly involved in the performance ofbasic life functions. But if the role they play is merely contributory, howexactly is it the case that it is they that are directly involved in these5/31/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.04.51http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011-04-51.html 4/5functions? Among the subsidiary parts are kidneys, which assist the bladderin the collection of residues by providing extra storage space. But how is thisdifferent from how horns assist in the rearing of young by providingprotection for them? The lines between the different sorts of teleology seemto me to be blurry enough to call into question the cogency of the distinction.The fourth chapter surveys the use of teleological principles in the biologicalworks, primarily PA 2-4. These principles are not specific to the individualphysical sciences; they are rather “heuristic principles” that provide the basicframework for finding what the discovered explanations would look like,and accordingly guide the investigation into what the relevant demonstrativeprinciples are. Leunissen surveys the various forms that the superordinatemethodological principle “nature does nothing in vain” might take and thevarious patterns of explanation that might be used in making sense of livingthings by appeal to such a principle. She shows how a teleological principleof this kind allows one to engage in thought experiments that determine theadvantage or necessity of regular features of certain biological kinds.Ch. 5 explores the extent to which the results of the previous chapters can beapplied to Aristotelian cosmology, which, like biology, makes ample use ofteleological explanation. She shows how the cosmological explanations areextensions of the explanatory strategies that had been so successful in regardto biological kinds at the terrestrial level, and how Aristotle offers suchexplanations in full awareness of their more limited suitability, in light ofhow little is empirically known about the heavens.The final chapter (apart from a summarizing conclusion) turns to the mainissue that has plagued efforts to understand teleological explanations inconformity with the strictures of the Posterior Analytics: how can the finalcause serve as middle term? Leunissen’s answer is that it doesn’t. Readershave been misled by Aristotle’s assertion that for all varieties of causationthe aitia is revealed by the middle term, thinking that here, as elsewhere inAristotle, aitia is synonymous with aition. Leunissen argues that here, aitiameans “explanation,” not “cause.” Aristotle’s point, then, is that the middleterm is crucial in revealing that whole explanation of the goal that serves asfinal cause; it does not itself express that final cause (though it does expressthe formal or efficient cause that serves to explain the final cause). I amdubious of this move, for within the Posterior Analytics, the term aitia is ontwo occasions used to refer not to the whole demonstration that serves toexplain and allow one to understand something, but to the cause that such anexplanation identifies. Thus at 71b9-12, the aitia is explicitly identified asthat through which the fact (pragma) is. At 85b21-22, Aristotle uses the termaitia to refer, not to the logos that reveals the source of error, but to the cause5/31/2018 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.04.51http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011-04-51.html 5/5of the error itself. One could say that these passages are aberrations in abook that otherwise consistently employs a term in a way that is aberrantfrom the rest of the corpus, but for me the most likely account of APo. 2.11is still that which is widely accepted: Aristotle goofed.Even if it does not win general acceptance, the account of the syllogisticstructure of teleological explanations presented in the sixth chapter is one tobe reckoned with. The preceding chapters can be recommendedunconditionally. They offer a clear and wonderfully helpful schematicpresentation of the explanatory and methodological structure of the variousteleological explanations offered in the physical treatises; future readers ofthese treatises would be well advised to make ample use of them.Notes: 1.   See especially A. Gotthelf, “First Principles in Aristotle’s Parts ofAnimals in A. Gotthelf and J. G. Lennox (eds.), Philosophical Issues inAristotle’s Biology (Cambridge, 1987), 167-98, and J. G. Lennox, Aristotle’sPhilosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science (Cambridge,2001).Comment onthis review inthe BMCRblogRead LatestIndexfor2011ChangeGreekDisplayArchivesBooksAvailableforReviewBMCRHomeBryn MawrClassicalCommentaries BMCR, Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010  HTML generated at 14:24:42, Friday, 06 May 2011 

Review of \u3cem\u3eExplanation and Teleology in Aristotle\u27s Science of Nature\u3c/em\u3e by Mariska Leunissen

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Review of \u3cem\u3eExplanation and Teleology in Aristotle\u27s Science of Nature\u3c/em\u3e by Mariska Leunissen

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