Species

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Contents

List of Figures ........................................................................................................xiii
List of Tables ............................................................................................................xv
Series Preface .........................................................................................................xvii
Preface to the First Edition .....................................................................................xix
Preface to the Second Edition ..............................................................................xxiii
Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................xxv
Author ..................................................................................................................xxvii
Prologue ................................................................................................................xxix

SECTION I The Historical Development of “Species”

Chapter 1 The Classical Era: Science by Division................................................ 3

Plato’s Diairesis .................................................................................... 6

Aristotle: Division, and the Genus and the Species ............................. 9

Aristotle on Classification ............................................................... 9

The Tradition of the Topics ........................................................... 14

Aristotle’s Natural History of Species ........................................... 16

Theophrastus, and Natural Kinds ...................................................... 16

Epicureanism and the Generative Conception ................................... 19

The Hermetic Tradition: Species Come from Like ............................ 22

The Late Classical Tradition of Natural History ................................ 22

The Neo-Platonists: Species as a Predicable ...................................... 23

Augustine: The Mutable in God’s Design .......................................... 27

Bibliography ....................................................................................... 28

Chapter 2 The Medieval Bridge .......................................................................... 33

Boëthius: The Nature of the Species in Logic ................................... 33

Isidore of Seville: Metamorphoses ..................................................... 33

Universals versus Nominalism: Species Are in the Understanding ... 34

The Herbals and the Bestiaries: Meaning and Moral Species ........... 36

Frederick II, the Heretic Falconer ...................................................... 37

Albertus Magnus on Beasts and Plants .............................................. 41

St. Thomas: [Logical] Species as Individuals .................................... 43

Bibliography ....................................................................................... 44

Chapter 3 Species and the Birth of Modern Science .......................................... 47

Nicholas of Cusa: Contracted Species................................................ 47

Marsilio Ficino: The Primum of the Genus ....................................... 49