Aristotle on the Matter of Form: ? Feminist Metaphysics of Generation(Cycles)

Adriel M. Trott challenges the wholesale acceptance of the view that nature operates in Aristotle's work on a craft model, which implies that matter has no power of its own. Instead, she argues for a robust sense of matter in Aristotle in response to feminist critiques. She finds resources for thinking the female's contribution and the female on its own terms and not as the contrary to form, or the male.

Table of Contents:
Introduction MethodHistorical ApproachesOne-Sex and Two-Sex ModelsThe Problem of Aristotle and the One- and Two-Sex ModelsMaterial Evidence 1. Feminist Critics of Aristotle’s Biology and Metaphysics The Feminist DisputesFeminist Critics Who Say Aristotle’s Biology is SexistCritics Who Say Aristotle’s Biology is Not SexistFeminist Critics and Defenders of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Conclusion 2. Disputes Over the Material Contribution of Semen Robust Material View versus Restricted Material ViewMaterial Necessity and TeleologyAristotle and Plato on FormConclusion 3. Aristotle on Material Beyond Prime MatterPhysics I 7: Change and the SubstratumMetaphysics VII 3: Substance as SubstratumDe Caelo IV 5: The Elements in CommonHow Matter is ManyOn Generation and CorruptionMatter in Natural Substances: Generation as a ProblemSoul as the Actuality of the Body: The User and the ImplementThe Ways of Being Acted Upon: Like and Unlike 4. The Feminine and the Elemental in Greek Myth, Medicine and Early Philosophy Gender, Generation and the GodsThe Elemental Among the Pre-SocraticsHippocratics, Elemental Powers and GenderConclusion 5. Semen, Menses, Blood: Material in Generation Concoction as Mastery of the MoistureInternalised Heat: From Blood to SemenMaterial and Teleology in Aristotle’s MeteorologyHow Semen is a Causal PartMaterial Composition of SemenSources of Vital Heat: Stomach, Sun and Earth 6. Sex Differentiation, Inheritance and the Meaning of Form in Generation ‘The Female is, As it Were, Deformed.’How Sex Differentiation Explains the Work of Form and MatterHow Inherited Traits Explain the Role of FormContradiction and Contrariety 7. Craft and Other Metaphors Craft Analogy Explains Why Generation Needs Males and Why it Happens in FemalesCraft Analogy Explains How Semen Actualises FormOther Images and Metaphors Conclusion: On Material in Aristotle’s Biology ConclusionRevisiting the One-Sex and Two-Sex ModelsThe Möbius Strip Bibliography; Index Locurum; Index

About the Author :
Adriel Trott is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wabash College. She is the author of Aristotle on the Nature of Community (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Review :
Adriel M. Trott’s book skillfully and exhaustively places Aristotle’s theory of animal generation and his account of inherited characteristics in its literary and philosophical context to develop an enmattered account of form and an active account of matter that challenges the artifactual interpretation of hylomorphism and, with it, the grounds for many feminist criticisms of Aristotle’s metaphysics as gendered and sexist Adriel M. Trott develops a careful, thorough and provocative re-reading of Aristotle that acknowledges his complex legacy for contemporary feminist philosophy. Trott convincingly shows how his conception of form and matter is bound up with and remains surreptitiously connected to the binarization of male and female, even as it remains misunderstood.