100%. The whole discipline of biological taxonomy, how species are classified, the modern version of which originated with Carl Linneaus, can be traced back to Aristotle.
Sure, but in the context it’s a reasonable summary. And the ‘culture wars’ over science and religion can hardly be dismissed.
That’s an interesting and challenging OP, especially for a bunch of exceptionalist philosophers such as ourselves!
You start by talking about a Sense Of Self, and then talk about consciousness. Are you intending these to have more or less the same meaning?
Would it, in principle, be possible for an organism to evolve and gain a sense of self in so far as it makes a practical distinction between itself and its environment such that it uses resources from its environment to feed itself, grow, reproduce, make predictions, avoid harm, all without the ‘lights on’? It seems to me that there are the functions of life on the one hand, and phenomenal awareness on the other, and that the former could theoretically manage without the latter. Indeed it’s not clear what consciousness adds on top of the functions of life that could possibly be useful. Perhaps you think that consciousness is nothing other than these functions.
As regards the confluence of facts, I am, as a philosopher, ignorant of these. I did do an a-level in Biology, but I haven’t surveyed modern biology. Could you give a few examples of the facts you have in mind?