This book argues that nature even in generation in Aristotle should be understood on an emergent model that sees a unity in the four causes. The model of artifice divides form from matter, where material only appears as already informed because it is itself natural, but functions in artifice as the stuff for form. Natural generation, and thus nature, appears to follow this model insofar as form in the figure of semen appears to impose itself on matter as menses, making form the superior and positive power that is the contrary to matter, which lacks and seeks after form. This book affirms the i ... More

This book argues that nature even in generation in Aristotle should be understood on an emergent model that sees a unity in the four causes. The model of artifice divides form from matter, where material only appears as already informed because it is itself natural, but functions in artifice as the stuff for form. Natural generation, and thus nature, appears to follow this model insofar as form in the figure of semen appears to impose itself on matter as menses, making form the superior and positive power that is the contrary to matter, which lacks and seeks after form. This book affirms the internal source of movement view by arguing that form in generation is working in and through matter and that matter has a character of its own, suggesting the Möbius strip as a model for the relationship. Semen does the work of form through the material that makes it semen; semen’s matter has its own power to contribute to form, not reducible to its relationship to form. The book presents arguments against the existence of species form and prime matter in Aristotle and canvasses ancient Greek depictions of the feminine in order to situate the specifics of Aristotle’s account of material in the composition and working of semen and menses in generation and sex differentiation. It concludes by canvassing the places Aristotle uses the analogy to craft to show how they work in specific contexts.