Aristotle made revolutionary steps in practically every discipline that he pursued, but perhaps one of his most recognized and relevant accomplishments was his documentation and categorization of The Animal Kingdom or, as I personally prefer to call it, TAK. The scientific community is vastly Aristotelean in its general pursuit. In a lot of ways, we as a species, are predisposed to this categorization of the world, especially as represented by Aristotle's work on animals. The dialectic influence he received from Plato gave him a specific insight on the world, ultimately enabling him to progress into unclaimed intellectual territory. The type off insight I am referring to can be represented by a statement in his History of Animals: "But no creature is able only to move by flying, as the fish is able only to swim." This passage can represent both positive and negative aspects of Aristotle's account on animals and his methods in general. It shows Aristotle as observing the fish and the birds as operating under the same forces in the world but giving advantage to the fish, in saying that they do not have to worry about walking and flying, only swimming. It was in this way that he came to his conclusions about the categories things go in. He arranged it all into a hierarchy that gave advantage to certain creatures but only in respects to the creatures that he designated to be similar - ultimately distributing the balance of aptitude within the structure to each animal. This type of attitude towards animals and finding behavioral connections between them would pave the way for the Theory of Evolution. On the other hand, the passage above can also give us information about the way he handled his data. Only through logical analysis of the immediate empirical data could one generate such a thought. This establishes cause for criticism. To Aristotle, if it makes logical sense, it is a true statement. In more contemporary styles of thinking, the truth of something is reliant upon an abundance of factors other than the tautological proof of it. We must precisely measure, calculate and test our hypothesis before granting it a presence in even the realm of could-be truths.
Aristotle was completely ahead of his time insofar as his general attitude towards the creatures of the Earth, especially in comparison to human beings. His general idea, and what seems to be an undertone in his work on animals in particular, is this concept of all beings having an interconnecting tendency in the same overlapping network. Or, he is viewing it all as being from the same mold. So, behavioral traits like communication, habitat, food consumption and biological traits such as size of limbs, internal organ structure, and cavities of the heart are all compared under the same microscope. In other words, no animal or animal part, even when divided into categories, ever verges away from the general category and map to which life itself is at the mercy of. For example, he will divide animals into two categories 'gregarious' and 'solitary', then from gregarious comes the sub-category containing 'social' creatures which is distinguished from gregarious by the general "Property of having some one common object in view." (HOA Bk. 1 mm5)
He then further distinguishes this 'social' category as containing humans, bees, wasps, ants, and cranes. Furthermore, Aristotle dives deeper and isolates those that are governed by a ruler such as humans and bees. This differs from even some contemporary views that may express the notion that a human civilization is separate from a bee hive or any other type of social animal that is forced to survive by teaming up, communicating ideas and working towards the common goal of survival for the species as a whole. That perhaps these dumb beasts are motivated by a natural force to which humanity is somehow immune, through the ability to perform complex mental processes or something. With social creatures, a form of government is established, and the animal follows a heiarchical pattern, it is a common trait, as much a natural part of humanity's form and genetic code as any other animal's. Aristotle asserts in his analytical pursuit of TAK that we are all driven by the same force and that humans are much more the same as other forms of life than we, selfish in nature, are sometimes willing to admit.
Aristotle is touching on some advanced ideas, especially with his biological endeavors that wont become fully appreciated until many centuries after his death with the popularization of the Theory of Evolution. He is approaching TAK at first as a whole, and then dividing it into sections, usually identical in form but opposite in function or, two sides of the same coin. He does this while not loosing the initial conception of the whole. This deductive form of analysis presents an attitude that seems to hint at various intellectual and spiritual constructs that have driven the ultimate human paradigm of knowledge. Eastern philosophy and the teachings of the Dali Llama for example and even through the works of Fibonacci and the more contemporary disciplines formed because of his work such as Chaos Theory, and even Einstein's Theory of Relativity seems to be reinforced by the same general principles of everything existing on the same level, operating under the same outline. Time and space. Human and bee.
What I think is interesting about this is that Aristotle's framework for observation is lacking in both a-priori type empiricism and spiritual swaying. His information of TAK is gathered by a strict attempt at hardcore empiricism which is a known characteristic in Aristotle's world. In the time after Aristotle's death, the western school of thought became increasingly more saturated with Christian influence. Considerable advancements in technology were initiated and nurtured during the time after Constantine's initiation of the church into governmental affairs, but it wasn't until Copernicus suggested a heliocentric model of the universe that any progress was really made in the understanding of the physical world. This was because in order to understand the world as it is, you must make claims about the way it was or has been in the past. Conveniently enough, the map that is drawn out as a result of biological analysis and how organisms formed for example, contradicts the map that the Christian religion has provided. In order to pursue an explanation of the world you must question the authority and spiritual belief of the church. A belief that western culture has prescribed to. So the study of the physical sciences was gently ushered out of the western paradigm of science. When the heliocentric model of the cosmos was introduced, public opinion of the world was derailed from it's religious shackles and forced into a paradigm that would evolve with humanity as just another insignificant spec in an infinite vastness of space. This is an attitude that is seemingly becoming more and more parallel to Aristotle's a posteriori approach.
Aristotle's methods have been questioned as more contemporary methods for scientific discourse have been introduced. The modern instruments available in the periods after his death allow for a much more precise measurement and have the capabilities for creating much more solid claims. Aristotle simply lacked the convenience of these instruments and had to rely solely on empirical data. When regarding his accounts regarding TAK, he seems to be approaching it all as though he were an alien being, observing a new world for the first time. He is making claims based on his observations that are sometimes publicly recognized as lacking firm support, but they are claims that follow a logical pattern and are very developed for his time. The shortcomings that are frequently discussed within the scientific community I believe spawn from an inadequate experimental method available in the mentalities of the philosophers of ancient Greece. They were more focused on the intellectual side or even 'metaphysical' side of the mind and the issues it tends to address. It was their paradigm. It is to be expected, especially from a student of Plato, whose dialectic teachings focused on strict intelligence and stray from empirical resource. It seems proper that Aristotle would approach physical science the way he does. However, in a lot of ways, Aristotle solidified Plato's abstract insights on the world with insight of his own coupled with a more intricate system of logic. Plato's system was there, it was just not as defined.