Aristotelian Cognition and Biodiversity

Aristotle’s theory of cognition has the potential to serve as the principle or starting point of an environmental philosophy. Aristotle argues that cognition relates humans to the world through an act of identification.[1] By perceiving a substance, like a deer, the perceiver takes on the animal’s sensible form without its physical matter: the perceiver is the organism in the act of perception. In science, we seek universal explanations for why things are the way they are, and Aristotle thinks noûs or the theoretical intellect takes on the intelligible forms of the species we study. When studied, the intellect is isomorphic with the species-form, and depending on what we study, we are cognitively distinct from one another by studying different species. So, from an identity thesis we derive a difference thesis. Since cognition is a way of being, people are cognitively different from one another as they study different things. And by studying different organisms and their environments, scientists are beingly different from one another. Nature, then, provides an occasion for intellectual difference and different ways of human being.The difference thesis entails the need of conservation biology. If we value intellectual difference, we must stop the biodiversity crisis, as with fewer species there will be fewer opportunities for study and difference among us. One way, then, to support intellectual difference is to protect environments and promote biodiversity. This sounds like anthropocentrism, which can be problematic. But Aristotle also says that the good of an organism is identified with its intrinsic final cause,[2] so species should also be protected according to their intrinsic value independent of our interests.Note that when we have scientific knowledge of a species, it will include knowledge of the final cause. Are we, then, identical with the good of the species as well? Do different forms of life contribute to the human good through our scientific understanding of them? If yes, then being and value are united in the act of cognition, and the biodiversity crisis is a harm to all species affected, including our own.[1] DA iii 4-7.[2] Ph. 2.3