The Influence of Aristotle’s Classification System and Scale of Nature from BC to Present

Aristotle’s zoological works are the first known Western attempts to use scientific means to describe animals and their behaviors. In the following two thousand years, Aristotle’s work, particularly his classification system and his Scale of Nature, affected the works of other notable researchers. These two concepts are evident in Albert the Great’s zoological research and works by German writers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Even though the Scientific Revolution and the works of Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin affected the views of classification and animal hierarchy, Aristotle’s concepts are still visible in animal ethics and practices today