Galen Explains the Elephant

• Published in: Canadian journal of philosophy 1988-01, Vol.18, p.135-157
• Main Author: HANKINSON, R. J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biology; Evolution; Galen; Morphology
• ISSN: 0045-5091; 0229-7051; 1911-0820; 2633-0490
• DOI: 10.1080/00455091.1988.10715947

Q: What did the elephant say to the naked man? A: It looks O.K., but can you breathe through it? Let me begin by justifying that joke for those of you didn’t find it funny. The relationship between the morphology of the physical organs and their activities has long been a vexed issue in the philosophy of biology: the question of whether structure determines function is of course of contemporary importance in evolutionary theory. That there was a relationship between structure and function was not in general a matter of doubt to the Greek theoretical biologists: but both the extent, and crucially the direction, of the dependence was. And the question need not be restricted to a consideration of the function of a particular part in isolation: when Aristotle takes issue with Anaxagoras for asserting that humans are the most intelligent species because they have hands, claiming rather that they have hands because they are intelligent, he is making a claim not just about the direction of explanation involved, but he is also implicitly at least indicating the scope of such explanations. For Aristotle, intelligence is one of the human functions: and that function necessitates the existence and development of certain organic structures.