ABSTRACT

There continued to be philosophical treatments of the idea of division in living things throughout the remainder of the classical period. Aristotle traveled widely throughout the Hellenistic world, tutoring the young Alexander before he became Great. He therefore lived at a time of increased travel and trade, as well as during the flowering of Greek thought and science. There could be many parts in each category. In the Posterior Analytics, he says, using the term infimae species for the most specific division of a topic. As Hull observes, Plato's direct influence on biology is late, not until the seventeenth century by way of the Neo-Platonists. The Aristotelian and Platonic traditions were not the only ones in the classical period that dealt with species. A large part of Aristotle's poor reputation results from the rhetoric of the Renaissance humanists, who sought to downplay the worth of the leading contemporary source of Scholastic philosophy and theology.