BIBIKHIN READS ARISTOTLE: MAN — ANIMAL — NATURE

Annotation

The article examines the results of V. V. Bibikhin’s original understanding of Aristotle’s natural- scientific works. In the context of the thematization of matter, V. V. Bibikhin takes a step towards a new interpretation of Stagirite’s zoological works “History of Animals” and “On the Origin of Animals”. Aristotle’s study of animals, among which man stands, has a heuristic character for V. V. Bibikhin: questions are posed about the distinctive features of man, about the reasons for man’s and animal’s behavior, the reasons for the emergence of living things and animal species, which are understood not as special zoological questions, but questions directly related to ontology. Animal behavior is understood as the action of automata, based on their own nature. Following this, automatic human action, corresponding to its nature, is understood by V. V. Bibikhin as possible only outside of consciousness (in a state of amechania). In turn, the birth of animals is interpreted as the giving of form to the fetus by the male — the addition to matter of that without which it would not be an animal, an automaton, self-propelled. This formation is understood as the aesthetic mpact of the male, which, by its seizing, reveals the feeling soul, which is simultaneously the goal and fullness of the animal. The prospect of such a commentary leads to a new understanding of biology as ethology, bringing them closer to ethics, but again helps to see nature as that which is connected with being, self-propelled (automaton).

Keywords

Aristotle, Aristotle’s works in natural science, V. V. Bibikhin, amechania, automaton

Literature

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The research was carried out at the expense of the grant of the Russian Science Foundation
No. 24–28–01107, https://rscf.ru/project/24–28–01107/; the Russian Christian Academy for the
Humanities named after Fyodor Dostoevsky