Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation offers many puzzles to those who wish to understand his theory both within the context of his biology and within the context of his more general philosophy of nature. In this paper, I approach the difficult and vague elements of Aristotle’s account of spontaneous generation not as weaknesses, but as opportunities for an interesting glimpse into the thought of an early scientist struggling to reconcile evidence and theory. The paper has two goals: (1) to give as charitable and full an account as possible of what Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation was, and to examine some of its consequences; and (2) to reflect on Aristotle as a scientist, and what his comments reveal about how he approached a difficult problem. In particular, I propose that the well-recognized problem of the incompatibility between Aristotle’s concept of spontaneity and his theory of spontaneous generation presents an opportunity for insight into his scientific methodology when approaching ill-understood phenomena.

中文翻译：

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亚里士多德自发生成理论的方法论

亚里士多德的自发产生理论为那些希望在他的生物学背景下和他更一般的自然哲学背景下理解他的理论的人提供了许多难题。在这篇论文中，我不是将亚里士多德关于自发产生的解释中困难而模糊的元素视为弱点，而是将其视为对早期科学家努力协调证据和理论的思想进行有趣一瞥的机会。这篇论文有两个目标：（1）对亚里士多德的自发生成理论是什么进行尽可能慈善和全面的说明，并检查它的一些后果；(2) 反思作为科学家的亚里士多德，以及他的评论揭示了他如何处理一个难题。特别是，