EXCERPT Ever since Aristotle distinguished the living from the non-living in terms of psukhê—commonly translated as ‘soul’ or ‘life-principle’—the concept of ‘life’ has itself been defined by a duplicity—at once self-evident and yet opaque, capable of categorization and capable of further mystification. This duplicity is related to a another one, namely, that there are also two Aristotles—Aristotle-the-metaphysician, rationalizing psukhê, form, and causality, and Aristotle-the-biologist, observing natural processes of ‘generation and corruption’ and ordering the ‘parts of animals’…