This book provides a detailed analysis of Aristotle's Parts of Animals. It presents the wealth
of information provided in the biological works of Aristotle and revisits the detailed natural
history observations that inform and in many ways penetrate the philosophical argument. It
raises the question of how easy it is to clearly distinguish between what some might describe
as merely biological and the philosophical. It explores the notion and consequences of
describing the activity in which Aristotle is engaged as philosophical biology. The book
examines such questions as: do readers of Aristotle have in mind organisms like Ascidians or
Holothurians when trying to understand Aristotle's argument regarding plant-like animals? Do
they need the phenomena in front of them to understand the terms of the philosophical argument
in a richer way? The discussion of plant-like animals is important in Aristotle because of the
question about the continuum between plant and animal life. Where does Aristotle draw the line?
Plant-like animals bring this question into focus and demonstrate the indeterminacy of any
potential solution to the division. This analysis of Parts of Animals shows that the study of
the nature of the organic world was Aristotle's way into such ontological problems as the
relationship between matter and form or form and function or the heterogeneity of the many
different kinds of being.?
