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Aristotle - On The Parts Of Animals
Atec Февраль 16 2008 20:01:06
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The method of dichotomy is either impossible (for it would put a
single group under different divisions or contrary groups under the
same division), or it only furnishes a single ultimate differentia for
each species, which either alone or with its series of antecedents has
to constitute the ultimate species.
If, again, a new differential character be introduced at any stage
into the division, the necessary result is that the continuity of
the division becomes merely a unity and continuity of agglomeration,
like the unity and continuity of a series of sentences coupled
together by conjunctive particles. For instance, suppose we have the
bifurcation Feathered and Featherless, and then divide Feathered
into Wild and Tame, or into White and Black. Tame and White are not
a differentiation of Feathered, but are the commencement of an
independent bifurcation, and are foreign to the series at the end of
which they are introduced.
As we said then, we must define at the outset by multiplicity of
differentiae. If we do so, privative terms will be available, which
are unavailable to the dichotomist.
The impossibility of reaching the definition of any of the
ultimate forms by dichotomy of the larger group, as some propose, is
manifest also from the following considerations. It is impossible that
a single differentia, either by itself or with its antecedents,
shall express the whole essence of a species
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