Species

8 Species

Soc. The second principle is that of division into species according to the natural

formation, where the joint is, not breaking any part as a bad carver might. [Jowett’s

translation]^21

Socrates then says he is a great lover of division and generalization, and follows
anyone who can see the “One and the Many” in nature. Note, however, that Socrates
includes human society in the term “nature” (“brought forth,” πέφυκεν) here.
Nelson and Platnick^22 quote a passage from Plato’s The Statesman^23 in which
Plato presents an argument against incomplete groups that is similar in many ways to
Aristotle’s argument against privative groups given below, but this point is not medi-
ated to later writers on logic. As Hull observes,^24 Plato’s direct inuence on biology
is late, not until the seventeenth century by way of the Neo-Platonists. Indirectly,
though, is another matter.

(^21) 265e. Nichols translates it: “to cut apart by forms, according to where the joints have naturally grown,
and not to endeavor to shatter any part, in the manner of a bad butcher” [Plato 1998].
(^22) Nelson and Platnick 1981, 67f.
(^23) 262d−263a.
(^24) Hull 1967, 312.
Productive arts
Acquisition by exchange
Open acquisition (fighting)
Hunting of lifeless things
Hunting of land animals
Hunting of winged water animals (fowling)
Fishing by enclosures (nets)
Night fishing (with fires)
With blows downward from above
(tridenting)
Arts
Non-productive arts (acquisitive)
Acquisition by coercion
Secret acquisition (hunting)
Hunting of live things
Hunting of water animals
Hunting of animals in water (fishing)
Fishing by blows (hooks and spears)
Day fishing
With blows striking from below upward
(angling)
FIGURE 1.1 Plato’s classication of angling.