Aristotle claims that in making an animal, nature acts like a “good housekeeper” who “is accustomed to throw out nothing from which it is possible to make something useful” (744b16–17). How does nature act when it “make[s] something useful” in these cases – and does it differ from other ways it acts? I defend two main claims. The first is that Meteor. 4.2’s distinction between two sorts of ‘concoction’ processes offers an underappreciated source of evidence for answering this question. My (...) second claim concerns the nature of those processes and the ends they realize. While they are both the ends of their respective types of concoction, they differ in that some essential (process-defining) features of the second end – but not the first – are supplied by what the capacities of the “underlying” patient (on which the agent acts) are for. The result is a distinction between two kinds of end-directed efficient causation. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that just as a builder uses ‘tools’ to build a house, so too the soul ‘use[s] heat and coldness as tools’ to build an animal (Generation of Animals 740b25–34). I consider two questions about this claim: (1) what sorts of things does the soul use, and what is it for things like them to be organized? and (2) what philosophical work does this sort of organization do in Aristotle’s account of animal generation? I argue that the soul needs (...) flexible intermediate agents, that it organizes them in a way that exploits their flexibility, and that this is due to the demands of a complex, multi-stage process directed at a single end. (shrink)

In Physics 2.4–6, Aristotle offers an account of things that happen “by luck” and “spontaneously”. Many of these things are what we might think of as “lucky breaks”: cases where things go well for us, even though we don’t expect them to. In Physics 2.5, Aristotle illustrates this idea with the case of a man who goes to the market for some reason unrelated to collecting a debt he is owed. While he is there, this man just so happens to (...) run into his debtor and get his money back—which is what he “wanted” all along. This case has a number of features that have proved puzzling. Most notably, Aristotle seems to think that while “it happened accidentally to him to come and to do this for the sake of getting the money”, nevertheless the man “did not come for the sake of this”—though he “would have”. What must such a proceeding be like to be described in these ways? Physics 2.4–6 makes several important moves towards answering this question. One of them—among the earliest and seemingly a foundational one—is the claim that “for the sake of something are as many things as could be done by thought and by nature”. The aim of this paper is to identify the role that this claim plays in Aristotle’s account of spontaneous proceedings. It defends two main claims. First, Aristotle’s suggestion that spontaneous proceedings could be done by nature and by thought is the product of a more general strategy. His approach is to sketch an intuitive pattern of explanation for proceedings that happen for the sake of something in the ordinary—non-spontaneous—way, and then to try to extend that model to the case of things that do so spontaneously, preserving as much of it as possible. Applying this strategy reveals that whereas nature and thought in fact function as efficient causes of ordinary proceedings that are for the sake of something, this cannot be the case in spontaneous ones. Instead, nature and thought could function as their causes. Second, I argue that Aristotle’s implementation of this strategy is rooted in his account of causation and especially Physics 2.3’s list of “modes” of causes. When he claims that spontaneous proceedings “could” be done by nature and by thought, he is saying that nature and thought are their efficient causes in capacity. In the practical case, spontaneous proceedings are caused by agents who have certain capacities, connected with their desires and abilities. In the right circumstances, these agents would actively exercise those capacities in acting for the sake of a given end. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Meteorology 4.12 is puzzling, in part because the chapter appears to extend teleological explanation to include certain inorganic materials without natural biological functions, such as metals and stone. This paper examines two attempts to explain why such materials can have functions, and shows that they are problematic. As an alternative, I argue that raw inorganic materials—as well as separated parts of organisms—can have extrinsic functions. Extrinsic functions can explain why natural inorganic materials can be sorted into natural kinds, even (...) if their functions are ultimately related to their uses in the productive arts. (shrink)