Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Aristotles Definition of the Natural and Unnatural
If I interpreted it correctly, and accurately paid attention in class today, I think what Aristotle was saying about nature today was the interpretation of what is Natural and what is unnatural or other than natural. I interpreted as that Aristotle believes that everything natural is down to the elements. That plants and animals or humans are natural and the parts of each of these are natural down to the elements but that the unnatural are those items made through a craft, such as a bed. Though a bed is made from natural products, it is made through a skill or technique into something else so it becomes unnatural. He comes to this conclusion because the things that are considered natural are those things which have it within themselves a standard of motion or immovability; to alter or change, to grow or die. Therefore, if we assume Aristotle’s belief in book one, chapter one to be true, could we not go back to the first discussion of class in which we addressed what constitute something natural and unnatural? It might clarify our argument a bit as to what object are considered Natural and which are not. By Aristotle’s argument, a TV would still be part of nature, yet it would be unnatural because it no longer has the ability inside itself to change and that everything in a TV was once natural, yet through humans, we altered all of its basic parts, making the whole TV unnatural. So my question is, what about genetically modified plants? They are still a plant and they still have the principle or altering or changing, and can grow or decay yet, humans have altered them. Humans have taken their basic elements and changed them, so wouldn’t GMOs be considered unnatural? I may be wrong in my assumptions of what Aristotle believes, but if we assumed the principles above to be true, then how would we categorize GMOs or are there any other objects in our current world that blur the line between Aristotle’s definition or the natural and unnatural?
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I think this really ties into what we discussed earlier in the year about defining what is natural and unnatural. I don't totally agree; however, that things like a TV or a bed would be found natural. I feel that what Aristotle is getting at is the absolute fundamental basics are needed for nature. For example humans are natural but the cloths we wear are not. And as far as GMO's I would say that with this idea in mind, they couldn't be considered natural because we humans had to create them for our benefit otherwise, if it benefited nature, then nature would have created it...if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the principles stated above and that they clarify our previous arguments about what is nature/natural? Aristotle clarifies that once humans have changed or altered nature it becomes unnatural. I think that GMOs are nature, but definitely not natural. They do not appear in the natural environment on their own. It is still nature because it possess qualities of grow and adaptation. Humans have the ability to mimic nature and have that item act as nature but it is not natural.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this statement because in terms of Aristotle's conclusion that nature is made directly of elements of varies types in order to form whatever we see before us. I also think that this is a good clarification point going along with our discussion of nature vs. natural. With this definition in mind we know that a TV was made up from things that are found in nature however it alone cannot change itself but because it was derived from things found in nature it can be consider natural.
ReplyDeleteWith the GMO's , they are simply tweaking a component that is already present within the plant or organism with that in mind I still think that these plants could be called nature on the basis that we are simply tweaking them. The natural breeding process would still at some point in time produce that same result but only in a long version. So therefore the GMO's are simply nature in fast forward.