Aristotle and his biases?

I read somewhere that Aristotle claimed the soul enters a male fetus at 40 days, but doesn't enter a female one until day 80. Can anyone shed some light on this? I'm curious about his methodology—how did he arrive at those specific numbers, and what made him so certain?

Also... it looks like I might be mixing him up with Plato (according to my brother). I seem to remember Aristotle being against slavery, even though he was once held in bondage himself. My brother insists he was a slave owner, and claims Plato was the one who was declared a slave after some sort of fallout with a king, only to escape a few years later?

Help me clear the mental fog here; everything is getting tangled up.😵 😳

Nah, Aristotle wasn't actually against slavery.
Plato actually imagined his Polity without any slaves involved. Also—and this is just based on legend, since he doesn't explicitly write about it himself, so take it with a grain of salt—he was allegedly sold into slavery. Basically, he got an invite to Sicily to act as an advisor and philosophy teacher for the ruler there. Since Plato believed a just society could only work if a philosopher became a leader, or a leader became a philosopher, he went for it. Honestly, he knew it was a long shot, though, because this guy Dionysius—who wanted to be a philosopher—wasn't exactly known for having a great character. But hey, the chance to actually build a righteous society? Even if it seemed super unlikely, he couldn't just pass that up. Of course, things went south fast. Plato fell out of favor because he kept preaching about just leadership, which clearly wasn't what the ruler wanted to hear. So, the guy threw him in prison and eventually sold him into slavery. Some follower of Pythagoras ended up buying him and setting him free. Plato touches on this in his Seventh Letter, but he stays quiet about the whole slavery part, so that specific detail might be shaky.

As for what Aristotle thought... man, I honestly don't have an answer for you.

nobody at all said:I wouldn't know how to answer a question about Aristotle.

A shame, but thanks anyway. You just forgot to mention if Plato also advocated for slavery? I don't recall him mentioning slaves anywhere in his Republic.🤔

I'm actually quite curious about this Aristotle business; it's a pity no one is responding. Tell you what—I'll buy a beer for whoever gives me an answer or points me toward a decent source.

quoting...
quoting...
nominating...
nominating... (not that I've been very involved lately)
so:
Aristotle (384-322 BC) wrote in his History of Animals that the male embryo develops a human soul at about 40 days and a female embryo develops its soul at about 80 to 90 days. Aristotle's thinking derived from his three-stage theory of life: vegetable, animal, rational. The vegetable stage was reached at conception, the animal stage at "animation," and the rational stage soon after live birth. This theory, along with the 40/80 day view came to be accepted by early Christian thinkers. (See Exodus 21:22-25)
I suppose this is all connected to the debate over abortion and those types of issues.
In any case, the main point seems to be that Aristotle argues abortion doesn't technically become murder until 40 days after conception—meaning, before that window closes, it could somewhat be justified. As for his claim that male fetuses become "people" sooner than females, it feels like just another layer of the typical sexism prevalent during that era.
Philosophers in general didn't seem to have much respect for women—largely because, as Aristotle puts it, they are "colder" than men and more prone to those "cold" ailments caused by an excess of "black bile" (though we also have "yellow bile," which is why I specified black bile). Those "cold" illnesses would include things like hysteria or melancholy.

It could have been more detailed, but I can't exactly expect everything on a silver platter, can I? 🙂 [Bud Light 🙂]

I’m well aware of what the philosophers had to say about those psychological types.

Besides, how can hysteria and melancholy be cold? Honestly, I'll just go read some psychoanalysts so I don't bother you philosophers. 😛

The following quote comes from a thread discussing Max Weber in the social sciences—I'm pulling this from the esteemed krazykat...

"My favorite old professor used to say, 'Every time we come up with something brilliant, you women just ask more questions!'"

I've been drinking enough Bud Light lately to drown a small town.

(As Griffin would say: if you ever see a ghost,
just drink Bud Light until you can't see straight)

Yeah, I saw that 😁

Most people think Aristotle was some kind of genius, so just look at the nonsense he actually said. Sure, it was all "of its time," but still 😉

What kind of nonsense is that?

It isn't as if he was claiming this was some sort of absolute scientific certainty.

That was merely a theory—perhaps even leaning more toward metaphysics than biology, if you ask me.

Back then, he couldn't have possibly known that women would achieve equality with men, simply because they weren't equal at the time.

Today, of course, they are.

In just about everything—well, except for philosophy, I suppose.

Bertrand Russell used to write about education, and he’d mention this little anecdote about Aristotle to show how philosophy sometimes just abandons experimentation as a valid method.
Basically, Aristotle claimed women have fewer teeth than men—probably because he just had his wife sitting right there to count them 😁. Then he argued kids would be healthier if conceived during a north wind. He even suggested a horse bite is more dangerous if the mare is pregnant. Oh, and apparently you can cure an elephant's insomnia by rubbing its shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water. Stuff like that. 😁

He was still a pretty decent guy, I guess 👍 😁

Tyler Grant76 said:Basically, Aristotle claimed that women had fewer teeth than men—apparently, he just had a wife nearby whom he could easily count them on.

I realize some of you might not appreciate the implication I'm about to make here, but perhaps it's true that women back then really did have fewer teeth than men... simply because their husbands were regularly "counting" them.

William Gonzalez3 said:I know some of you might not appreciate what I’m hinting at here, but maybe women back then really did have fewer teeth than men... mostly because their husbands were constantly "counting" them.

Man, I love... intellectual types...

🤣 🤣

William Gonzalez3 said:I realize some of you might take offense at my insinuation, but perhaps women back then truly had fewer teeth than men because their husbands were constantly "counting" them.

It appears someone is taking the idea that philosophers merely reflected the spirit of their age a bit too literally. 🤣

Tyler Grant76, where exactly are you getting these facts? It’s remarkably easy to manufacture a sage—just pluck two or three clever lines from hundreds of statements, ignore the rest, and—ta-da.

Do you have anything juicy on Plato or Socrates? Let's see how William Gonzalez3 tries to defend them then.😬

http://www.users.drew.edu/~jlenz/brtexts.html

Here 👍

madwoman said:I read somewhere that Aristotle claimed the soul enters a male fetus at 40 days, but for females, it doesn't happen until day 80. Can someone explain this to me? I'm curious about how he actually calculated those numbers and why he was so damn sure about it.

And another thing... It looks like I might have mixed him up with Plato (or so my brother claims), but I somehow remembered that he was against slavery even though he was once a slave himself. My brother insists he was actually a slave owner, and that Plato was the one who was declared a slave because of *something* (some fight with a king, maybe?) and then escaped a few years later...

Help me get my head straight here, everything is getting totally jumbled up in my brain😵 😳

I honestly think there’s some actual science behind that, more from a biology standpoint than a philosophy one.
In this thread, I’d love to call on an expert in the field—maybe Spike—to break down exactly which week of pregnancy the embryo starts developing sex characteristics. If I remember correctly, we’re all basically "girls" for a while until the guys finally start growing their equipment. But hey, let the pros speak 👍
ps. Not to mention we all have little tails for the first few weeks 😱 😱

Tyler Grant76 said:I just can't stand... well... those types of intellectuals...

I'm not sure how that even relates to what we're discussing here.

We are talking about the controversial findings from Aristotle's empirical studies.

My point—if I can call it that—is simply that we shouldn't view him through the lens of a modern scientist. He was a philosopher from ancient Greece, after all, and he was inevitably limited by the era and the tools available to him. So, while his research results might not have been perfectly accurate by today's standards, I'd argue he remains almost peerless when it comes to pure philosophy and theoretical reasoning.

As for your obsession with intellectuals—well, I hope you realize that most of them aren't worth much of anything.

madwoman said:it seems like someone is taking it a bit too literally when they suggest philosophers were merely drawing conclusions based on the spirit of their era.

As I mentioned earlier, I think Aristotle wasn't really acting as a philosopher here—more like a natural scientist.
And what felt perfectly normal back then just isn't viewed the same way today.

For instance, nowadays, you’d probably find that the best way to soothe an elephant is by gently rubbing its feet with a sponge soaked in lukewarm water. You definitely wouldn't use salt water, since an elephant's feet are incredibly sensitive and often have little abrasions that salt would just irritate.

Now, you won't really find anything like that regarding Plato or Socrates, mostly because Socrates was primarily an ethicist, whereas Plato was more of a pure philosopher. They didn't really dabble in the natural sciences.
If I'm off base on that, please feel free to correct me.

look at this:

quoting this: "Along with the 15th week of pregnancy, this marks the end of the first trimester... In male fetuses, the prostate develops, while in female fetuses, the ovaries descend from the abdomen into the small pelvis."

So, basically, I’d say that the whole deal with the 80th day actually meant that’s when the sexes start to differentiate.

And that part about the 40th day? That was just about life itself starting up in general:

"By the end of last week and during this one, a simple little ball—the blastocyst—turns into an embryo where three distinct layers begin to form, which will eventually become three different types of tissue. From the inner layer (endoderm), you get the digestive system, pancreas, liver, and lungs; from the outer layer (ectoderm), you get the nervous system, skin, hair, tooth enamel, and eye lens. The middle layer (mesoderm) differentiates into the skeleton, muscles, kidneys, heart, and blood vessels. Cells from each tissue type migrate constantly until they hit their target destination."

Around the same era and in much of the same context, someone managed to calculate the circumference of the globe with incredible accuracy. Of course, just before that, another experimental philosopher had already figured out that we live on a round earth.
For a while there, pure speculation started to outpace actual insight. Because of that, treating those Aristotelian conclusions about things he didn't even understand as being just as valid as the idea that the world is a flat plane... well, that happened.
That kind of philosophical shift actually worked out perfectly for defending certain religious dogmas. So, I guess it isn't surprising that through that Aquinas, Aristotelian thought ended up getting woven right into Christian doctrine.

Tyler Grant76 said:Around the exact same time and place, this guy managed to nail the Earth's circumference with crazy accuracy. And sure, just before that, some other experimental philosopher had already figured out the round earth thing.
Eventually, pure guesswork started trumping actual insight, so treating Aristotle's conclusions about things he clearly didn't understand as being just as valid as saying the Earth is a flat pancake was a total joke.
That kind of philosophical drift worked perfectly for backing up religious dogmas, so it’s no shocker that through that Aquinas guy, Aristotelian thought got twisted and woven right into Christian doctrine.

Tyler Grant76, you're totally forgetting that back in Aristotle's day, science was actually pretty advanced—almost like a Renaissance vibe—and way more free than the suffocating mess of the Dark Ages. Honestly, Aristotle probably had moments between debating his students where he could watch a fetus develop, and based on those (likely flawed) samples and zero high-tech gear, he made some sweeping guesses. I mean, my take? Those ideas about male and female souls (which, like you pointed out, are such a mess) were probably interpreted much later during the Middle Ages. In their original form, they likely had a scientific feel rooted in biological observation, only picking up those heavy religious connotations later on when they were weaponized by the ruling ideology to suit their own agenda.

The value was simply what it was.

My point is about truthfulness.

Can we actually know what elephants were like back then?
Or women?

We are jumping to conclusions here...

In that era, men likely preferred the company of other men over women.

Women didn't have the right to vote, nor anything even remotely similar.

So, if we follow that logic, the conclusion might be this: back then, women weren't necessarily the more beautiful sex—and that could truly be the case. Perhaps the Greek woman during that period was quite unattractive.
And maybe, just maybe, women weren't all that intelligent at the time, unlike how things are today.😂
We can't really know for sure.
It’s all just speculation, I guess.

I agree that perhaps not everything Aristotle wrote is one hundred percent accurate, but he certainly recorded far more truths and conducted many more successful experiments than what seems to be implied by your posts—which, frankly, seem to suggest he would have been better off sticking strictly to philosophy.