system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How did Aristotle know bees are deaf?

Right at the start of the Metaphysics Aristotle says bees cannot hear. How did he know this?
gpt
Aristotle has tons of discussions of bees in his works on animal biology. He gained basically none of that knowledge first-hand. He asked bee-keepers for their knowledge of bee anatomy, physiology, reproduction, etc. That's how he came to know these facts about bees.

It's the same way that he came to know about how dolphins feed, for example, which is an important subject in *Parts of Animals* IV. It isn't like he stuck his head in the water to see how they feed. He's relying on a set of received knowledge from fishermen. (This was during the phase of Aristotle's life that he spent studying a lot of marine biology.)