Aristotle, a philosopher and scientist from ancient Greece, is known for his immense contributions to the fields of science and philosophy. His work has influenced Western intellectual history for over two millennia.
Aristotle’s intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and many of the arts. He worked in physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, and botany; in psychology, political theory, and ethics; in logic and metaphysics; and in history, literary theory, and rhetoric.
In this blog post, we will explore Aristotle’s discoveries in science, including his classification of life, his observations on dolphins, and his belief in the four elements.
Join us as we delve into the fascinating world of Aristotle’s scientific contributions.
What Did Aristotle Discover In Science
Aristotle was a pioneer in the field of biology, making numerous observations and discoveries that have stood the test of time. He produced his own classification of life, placing animals in groups according to features they had in common. He called each of these groups a genus and identified 11 of them. Aristotle went out to sea with fishermen, observed wildlife, and examined fishermen’s catches. He was the first scientist to write that dolphins are not fish – he observed that they have lungs, they give birth to live offspring, which are fed milk by their mothers. He grouped dolphins with porpoises and whales in a genus he called Cetacea.
Aristotle identified close to 600 species of life and was the first scientist to place species into different groups based on their shared features, a method later adopted by biologists such as Carolus Linnaeus. This method was used until DNA comparison displaced it.
In contrast to his highly theoretical approach to chemistry, Aristotle the biologist was perfectly happy to get his hands dirty dissecting animals. His biological observations were more accurate than his chemical ones. He believed that all materials were made of four elements: water, earth, air, and fire. The nature and kind of a substance or material were based on the proportions of the four elements. This view of chemistry endured through the Renaissance.
Aristotle’s belief in spontaneous generation was an error that persisted until relatively recently. Evidence from scientists eventually established that Aristotle was wrong. “For some plants are generated from the seed of plants, whilst other plants are self-generated through the formation of some elemental principle similar to a seed… So with animals, some spring from parent animals according to their kind, whilst others grow spontaneously and not from kindred stock; and of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out of the secretions of their several organs.”
Aristotle’s Classification Of Life
Aristotle’s classification of life was one of his most significant contributions to the field of biology. He believed that all living things could be divided into two groups: those with blood and those without. Animals with blood were further divided into two subgroups: live-bearing tetrapods (mammals) and egg-laying tetrapods (reptiles and amphibians). The cetaceans, which included whales and dolphins, were also considered tetrapods, but they did not have legs, so they formed a separate group.
Aristotle also identified a group of animals that had blood but no legs, which he called fishes. Among them were the selachians, which included sharks and rays, and had cartilages instead of bones. Animals without blood were divided into four groups: soft-shelled Malakostraka (crabs, lobsters, and shrimps), hard-shelled Ostrakoderma (gastropods and bivalves), soft-bodied Malakia (cephalopods), and divisible animals Entoma (insects, spiders, scorpions, ticks).
Aristotle’s classification of life was based on the features that animals had in common. He believed that animals could be classified according to their function and complexity, with complex organisms occupying positions further up the ladder. Plants were at the bottom of the ladder, and the lower animals occupied the middle echelons. The upper rungs consisted of higher animals giving birth to warm, live young.
Aristotle’s classification of life was influential for over two thousand years. It was one of the earliest systems of scientific taxonomy and laid the foundation for future studies in zoology. Although some of his observations were inaccurate, his thorough documentation of the natural world remains a landmark scientific text in the history of biology.
Aristotle’s Observations On Dolphins
Aristotle was one of the first scientists to observe and classify dolphins. He recognized that dolphins were not fish, but rather mammals that gave birth to live young and nursed them with milk. He also noted that dolphins had umbilical cords attached to their mothers, just like human babies.
In addition to these observations, Aristotle made a startling statement about dolphins’ ability to communicate. He claimed that the voice of the dolphin in air was like that of a human, and that they could pronounce vowels and combinations of vowels but had difficulties with consonants. This statement was initially dismissed by nineteenth-century biologists who had not experienced living dolphins firsthand.
However, new observations made in 1956 and 1957 confirmed Aristotle’s observation about dolphins’ ability to produce sounds in air. Modern-day dolphins have been observed emitting sounds in air when exposed to humans speaking in air, indicating that ancient dolphins likely acted the same way.
Aristotle also noted that small boys and dolphins developed mutual passionate attachments. He told stories of dolphins giving young boys rides and pulling them through the water. He even recounted an incident where a dolphin beached itself and died from grief when a friendly boy left.
Aristotle’s Belief In The Four Elements
Aristotle believed that all materials were made up of four natural elements: earth, water, air, and fire. He believed that these four elements were the building blocks of everything in the world, and that they were made up of four properties: clod, hot, wet and dry. These properties determined the behavior of each element and could be used to change one substance into another.
However, it is important to note that Aristotle’s understanding of the elements was not the same as our modern understanding of chemical elements. Rather than being individual substances, the four elements were seen as qualities or properties that could be combined in different ways to create different materials.
Aristotle’s belief in the four elements was a creative idea at the time, as many people believed that things were made up of thoughts and gods. His ideas influenced the development of alchemy, which was built around the five ancient Greek elements, including Aristotle’s four natural elements and a fifth element called quintessence.
Although Aristotle’s understanding of chemistry was not entirely accurate, his work in biology and classification of life has had a lasting impact on science. His method of grouping species based on shared features was adopted by later biologists and used until DNA comparison became the standard method for classification.
