Skip to main content

Prelude: Heredity, Sex, and Species: The Greek View

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Solitude of a Humble Genius - Gregor Johann Mendel: Volume 1

Abstract

October has a special significance to the modern scientist, because in this month the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm announces the year’s winners of the Nobel Prizes in three scientific disciplines (as well as in other fields)—medicine and biology, chemistry, and physics. Those scientists who believe that they have made breakthrough discoveries in one of these disciplines await the announcements with hope and trepidation, all others with curiosity. For although there are other awards that recognize the significance of scientific discoveries, none of them carry the prestige that a Nobel Prize does. The accolade is accompanied by great media interest, which then usually lasts until the actual awards ceremony in December.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References and Notes

  1. “Never, Telemachos, you will be feeble or thoughtless hereafter. If indeed is instilled in you the great force of your father—Such was the man he was to achieve both action and speeches—Then your journey will not be fruitless or lacking fulfillment.” Homer: The Odyssey, translated by Rodney Merrill. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI 2005. Book 2, verses 270–273

    Google Scholar 

  2. Peters FE (1967) Greek philosophical terms. A historical Lexicon. New York University Press, New York, NY

    Google Scholar 

  3. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (1996) 10th edn. Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA

    Google Scholar 

  4. Frede M, Striker G (eds) (1996) Rationality in Greek thought. Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  5. The Greek word symposion means drinking together (syn-, together, posis, drink). It is also the title of one of Plato’s dialogues describing a long drinking party, in which the participants debate the nature of love. In general, symposion was a social gathering of intellectuals, in which a discussion upon a chosen subject was aimed at collecting the opinions of different authorities

    Google Scholar 

  6. The first definition of a philosopher can be found in Plato’s Symposium, but the term was introduced much earlier. It was apparently used by Heraclitus and by the historian Herodotus in the sense philosophoi anders, men who love wisdom

    Google Scholar 

  7. Osborne C (1997) Heraclitus, Chap. 3. In: Taylor CCW (ed) Routledge history of philosophy, Vol I. From the beginning to Plato. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  8. Palmer J (2010) Parmenides and presocratic philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK

    Google Scholar 

  9. Kraut R (1992) Cambridge companion to Plato. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Book  Google Scholar 

  10. Abbel-Rappe S (2009) Socrates: a guide for the perplexed. Continuum, London

    Google Scholar 

  11. (a) Vella JA (2008) Aristotle: A guide for the perplexed. Continuum, London. (b) Grene M (1967) A portrait of Aristotle. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. (c) Barnes J (ed.) (1995) The Cambridge companion to Aristotle. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. (d) Schields C (2007) Aristotle. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  12. Ontology is the knowledge of being (from Greek ontos, “being,” and logos, here “knowledge.” The term was introduced in the form of Ontologia by the German philosopher Jacob Lorhard (1561–1609)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Studtmann P. Aristotle’s categories. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-categories/

  14. Adorno TW (2000) Metaphysics: concept and problems. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA

    Google Scholar 

  15. Cohen SM. http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/archange.htm

  16. Aristotle (1943) Generation of animals. English translation by Peck AL. Harvard University Press Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  17. Aristotle (2001) On the parts of animals. Translated with a commentary by Lennox JG. Clarendon Press, New York, NY

    Google Scholar 

  18. Meyer H (1918) Das Vererbungsproblem bei Aristoteles. Philologus. Zeitschrift für das klassiches Altertum und sein Nachleben 75:323–363

    Google Scholar 

  19. (a) Stiebitz F (1937) Biologické základy antických názorů o dědičnosti. A. Píša, Brno. (b) Lenz HO (1856) Zoologie der alten Griechen und Römer. Becker’sche Buchhandlung, Gotha. (c) Lesky E (1959) Die Zeugungs- und Vererbungslehren der Antike und ihr Nachwirken. Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz in Komission bei Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden

    Google Scholar 

  20. (a) Johannsen W (1917) Die Vererbungslehre bei Aristoteles und Hippokrates im Lichte heutiger Forschung. Die Naturwissenchaften 5(24): 389–397. (b) Henry D (2006) Aristotle on the mechanism of inheritance. J History Biol 39: 425–455. (c) Meyer H (1918) Das Vererbungs- problem bei Aristoteles. Philologus. Zeitschrift für klassische Altertum und sein Nachleben 75: 323–363. (d) Grmek MD (1991) Ideas on heredity in Greek and t: Altertum Roman antiquity. Physis 28: 11–34

    Google Scholar 

  21. Longrigg J (1985) A seminal “debate” in the fifth century B.C.? In: Gotthelf A (ed) Aristotle on nature and living things. Philosophical and historical studies presented to David M. Balme on his seventieth birthday. Mathesis Publications, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 277–287

    Google Scholar 

  22. Coles A (1994) Biomedical models of reproduction in the fifth century BC and Aristotle’s Generation of animals. Phronesis 40:48–88

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Boylan M (1982) The digestive and “circulatory” systems in Aristotle’s biology. J Hist Biol 15:89–118

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Freudenthal G (1995) Aristotle’s theory of material substance. Heat, pneuma, form and soul. Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK

    Google Scholar 

  25. Bos AP (2003) The soul and its instrumental body. A Reinterpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy of living nature. Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Book  Google Scholar 

  26. Solmsen F (1957) The vital heat, the inborn pneuma and the aether. J Hellenic Stud 77:119–123

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Rennet, in case you have forgotten, is a substance secreted by the membranes of the fourth compartment of the calf stomach. It contains the enzyme rennin (chymotrypsin), which digests proteins in milk and so causes its coagulation or curdling. Rennin is used for curdling milk in the production of cheese. Enzymes contained in certain plant juices, for example fig juice, can also curdle milk

    Google Scholar 

  28. Cardwell JC (1994) The development of animal physiology. Med Library Hist J 2(4); 225–242; 3(1); 50–77, 1905; 3(2): 141–154, 1905; 3(3): 189–198, 1905; 3(4): 275–282, 1905; 4(1): 101–107, 1906; 4(2): 206–210, 1906

    Google Scholar 

  29. The orchid Clitoria ternatea and the mushroom Phallus impudicus. See the frontispiece of Alec Bristow’s The Sex Life of Plants. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York, NY 1978

    Google Scholar 

  30. (a) Lennox JG (2005) Teleology, chance, and Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation. Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology. Studies in the Origins of Life Science. pp. 229–249. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. (b) Balme DM (1962) Development of biology in Aristotle and Theophrastus: Theory of spontaneous generation. Phronesis 7: 91–104

    Google Scholar 

  31. Henry D (2006) Aristotle on the mechanism of inheritance. J Hist Biol 39(425–455):2006

    Google Scholar 

  32. See Reference17, pp. 52–53

    Google Scholar 

  33. Stubbe H (1972) History of genetics from prehistoric times to the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws. Translated by Waters TRW. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. (The quotation from Aristotle is on p.31 of Stubbe’s book and the sentence in the Greek version of Aristotle’s Peri zoon geneseos appears in section I 117.721b 29.)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Drs. Dimitra Chalkia and Nikolas Nikolaidis, Personal communication

    Google Scholar 

  35. Witt C (1985) Form, reproduction, and inherited characteristics in Aristotle’s generation of animals. Phronesis 30:46–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. (a) Lloyd AC (1965) Genus, species and ordered series in Aristotle. Phronesis 7: 67–90. (b) Balme DM (1965) ΓENOΣ and EIΔOΣ in Aristotle’s biology. Classical Quarterly 56: 91–104

    Google Scholar 

  37. Zirkle C (1959) Species before Darwin. Proc Am Phil Soc 103:636–644

    Google Scholar 

  38. Pellegrin P (1985) Aristotle: A zoology without species. In: Gotthelf A (ed) Aristotle on nature of living things. Philosophical and historical studies Presented to David. M. Balme on his Seventieth Birthday. Mathesis Publications, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 95–115

    Google Scholar 

  39. Cain AJ (1959) Taxonomic concepts. Ibis 101:302–318

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Simpson GG (1961) Principles of animal taxonomy. Columbia University Press, New York, NY

    Google Scholar 

  41. Hull DL (1965) The effect of essentialism on taxonomy—two thousand years of stasis. Br J Phil Sci 15:314–366

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Mayr E (1963) Animal species and evolution. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  43. Balme DM (1980) Aristotle’s biology was not essentialist. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 62:1–12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Winsor MP (2001) Cain on Linnaeus: the scientist-historian as unanalyzed entity. Stud Hist Phil Biol Biomed Sci 32:239–254

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Wilkins JS (2009) Species. A History of the Idea. University of California Press, Berkley, CA

    Google Scholar 

  46. Stamos DN (2003) The species problem. Biological species, ontology, and the metaphysics of biology. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD

    Google Scholar 

  47. Mayr E (1982) Growth of biological thought Diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  48. Loewenstein WR (1999) The touchstone of life. Molecular information, cell communication, and the foundation of life. Oxford University Press, New York, NY

    Google Scholar 

  49. Delbrück M (1971) Aristotle-totle-totle. In: Monod J, Borek E (eds) Microbes and life. Columbia University Press, New York, NY, pp 50–55

    Google Scholar 

  50. Gutmann J (ed) (1963) Philosophy A to Z. Grosset & Dunlap, New York, NY

    Google Scholar 

  51. Kupiec J-J (2009) The origin of individuals. Translated from the French by Margaret and John Hutchings. World Scientific, Hackensack, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  52. Vinci T, Robert JS (2005) Aristotle and modern genetics. J Hist Ideas 66:201–221

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  53. Mauron A (2002) A genomic metaphysics. J Mol Biol 319:957–962

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Klein, J., Klein, N. (2013). Prelude: Heredity, Sex, and Species: The Greek View. In: Solitude of a Humble Genius - Gregor Johann Mendel: Volume 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35254-6_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics