The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science

The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science (2009) is a non-fiction book by the New Zealand-born author and biologist Armand Marie Leroi. Contrary to prevailing attitudes dating back to Galileo, Leroi posits that scientists should view Aristotle as a hero and a pioneer of their field. To make this argument, Leroi details a period of Aristotle's life after his first long academic tenure alongside Plato in Athens, when he traveled the greater Mediterranean region as one of history's earliest naturalists. The "lagoon" of the book's title refers to a large expanse of water on the Greek island of Lesbos.

So much has already been written about Aristotle's work in Athens as one of the fathers of Western philosophy that the author largely skips ahead to around the year 348 BC—the year of Plato's death—when Aristotle was in his mid-thirties. Despite having studied at the Academy of Plato since he was seventeen, a late schism between mentor and teacher resulted in Aristotle being passed over as the new head of the Academy. Leroi can only speculate if this was the reason for Aristotle's sudden departure from Athens that same year. Whatever the reason, Aristotle embarked on a long trip through remote areas in Greece, Turkey, and other far-flung destinations throughout Asia Minor. His goal was to document as many observations of the natural world as he could for a book he would later publish as the History of Animals.

Early on in the book, the author addresses some of the reasons for scientists' long tradition of denigrating Aristotle. Much of this is owed to the fact that Aristotle pioneered what is known as a teleological view of change in the natural world. This means that natural phenomena move in such a way as to bring an entity closer to some natural, idealized state. For example, in teleological terms, a flame leaps because it wants to go up, rather than because of a complex interplay of the surrounding oxygen and gravity. Later on, as Renaissance-era scientists like Copernicus and Galileo discovered better instruments and tools to measure the natural world, they realized that Aristotle's emphasis on "sense perception" to understand natural phenomena was deeply flawed. The fact that these scientists had to contend with a centralized Church actively hostile to the new methods of math and science resulted in a huge backlash to Aristotelian modes of thought.



Nevertheless, given the instruments at Aristotle's disposal, Leroi writes, his tireless work of describing and cataloging various flora and fauna served as a highly influential moment in the development of what would be known as "science." (Aristotle termed this work "natural philosophy.")

Most of his studies of the natural world ensued around Kolpos Kalloni, a massive lagoon on the island of Lesbos connected to the Aegean Sea. These thick marshes allowed for an enormous proliferation of fish, shellfish, eels, insects, birds, and amphibians. In Leroi's eyes, the Kolpos Kalloni lagoon was to Aristotle what the Galapagos Islands were to Charles Darwin. In fact, one of the earliest scientists to reappraise Aristotle's legacy as a biologist was Darwin himself, who in 1882 wrote, "From quotations which I had seen I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion of what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle."

Beyond mere observation, Aristotle also engaged in an almost journalistic kind of inquiry with the people he encountered on his journey. He documented reports from various fishermen and hunters who shared their impression of creatures Aristotle had yet to find himself. Some of these reports, Leroi admits, were likely myths spread down through cultures. Nevertheless, Aristotle's appreciation of folklore and oral traditions earns him a place among the earliest students of anthropology, the book argues.



Much of the book also focuses on how Aristotle's work as a naturalist informed his philosophical views, particularly in the ways his views differed from Plato's. Probably the biggest philosophical schism between the two men was that Plato believed chiefly in the importance of unseen yet elegant mathematical constructions as a way of explaining the world. Meanwhile, Aristotle's philosophy was underpinned by the importance of what can be seen and sensed. It is, perhaps, no surprise, Leroi argues, that Aristotle refined such conclusions while marveling at the explosion of flora and fauna in the lagoon of Lesbos.

Certainly, there were areas in which Aristotle's skill as a naturalist was lacking. His strong belief in "fixed species" of course runs counter to what biologists now know about evolution. Moreover, Aristotle's keen interest in the ways living things moved might have blinded him to the secret fossils of even wilder creatures hidden in the rocks below him. Nevertheless, The Lagoon does fine work in reclaiming Aristotle's legacy in the annals of science.