Is Genus to Species as Matter to Form? Aristotle and Taxonomy

Abstract

Whenever I teach the philosophy of biology, and especially any part of it to do with the species problem, and whenever I read, or hear, current discussions in philosophy of science, which await, it seems to me, some new resolution of the problem of scientific realism, I suffer from an unhappy consciousness that Aristotle could somehow tell us something on these matters if only we could read his message right. If we want to assert that there are real kinds in nature which the scientist — in particular the taxonomist - is trying to order and understand, surely Aristotle has something to tell us. But what?

This paper is - as A. L. Peck would put it - ‘zetetic rather than expository’. Indeed, I could not have searched even this far without the help of a number of colleagues, especially of Professors Michael Frede, Dorothea Frede and David Balme. My confusions, of course, are still my own, but if I have achieved any clarity on the difficult problem before us, I have them to thank for putting me on the road to it.