Talk:The four Aristotelian causes of living things

I do not support approval of this page, as it is not a balanced discussion of the stated subject. It is a discussion of the specific readings of Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr, and S. Marc Cohen on the subject. Regardless of how influential they are, or how sound their criticisms may be, Aristotle's own views should be the center of the article, and the responses of other philosophers to Hofmeyr and Cohen should be included--not just their own positions.

Even if this is not finished, and the intent is to include other views, the structure is still wrong. The sections should be I. Aristotle's views, II. Classical criticism, III. Cohen's criticism. IV Hofmeyr's criticism. [etc]

I am a biologist, not a philosopher, and I can not judge the importance of their criticism. And I do not want to go into the disc ussion of Hofmeyr's analysis of biological systems--at which I am not really a particular specialist. But I can judge the overall structure of an article. DavidGoodman 19:43, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

David, you make excellent points. This article really does not have standalone status.

I wrote the article to elaborate on a brief mention of Aristotle's views of the 'causes' of living things in Life and Life/Draft, specifically to bring in Hofmeyr and Cohen's take from a modern systems biology view. I will transform the 'article' to a separate subsection in Life/Supplementary text, which is a subpage of Life/Draft by virtue of having a link to it in Life/Draft's subpage "Related Articles]], which see. I will rename the subsection "Some modern views of the Aristotelian causes of living things".

Hopefully at some point clusters will include a specific "Supplementary Text" subpage. I've requested that of Larry and Chris.

I will therefore withdraw my request for approval of The four Aristotelian causes of living things.

Thanks for your helpful input. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 17:17, 20 September 2007 (CDT)