Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

Aristotle thought that this world is the real world, but he still
incorporated Plato’s view into his understanding of it. The perfect,
unchanging forms of which all material things are imperfect
representations are taken out of the ethereal world of forms and
packed into the living things themselves. All living things contain
within them a potentiality, an essence, and the course of their lives
is the history of them trying to actualize their potential.
Aristotle thought that all things are made up of matter and form,
substance and structure, and changes in both result from the
organism trying to reach its potential, a potential that is a part of
it and that remains the same for all members of the same species.
In the process of reproduction, the potentiality is encoded in
the organism.
The study of biology, according to Aristotle, is the study of
potentialities, the essential properties that make each species unique
and the properties that some species share in common. Biology,
therefore, has two steps.
First, the scientist must carefully document the anatomy of the
organism. Then, through observation, he or she must determine
Second, the scientist must incorporate the species into an
organized catalogue of all species. Species are grouped
according to common elements of their essences.
adapted for theological purposes. Plants and beasts weren’t thought
to have souls, but they did have plans, and these were placed inside
them based on the ultimate blueprint for creation.
In this way, we could still account for anatomical differences and
categorize species, but now, the list of species could have an order
of perfection imposed on it. The result was the Great Chain of
Being, in which every organism was in a species, and every species
97