Aristotle's Hylomorphism/Matter
Suppose that you find a nugget of gold and a nugget of silver.
For Aristotle, what makes a gold nugget a gold nugget is the form of gold and what makes the silver nugget a silver nugget is the form of silver, but what can be said specifically about matter in Aristotle's metaphysics?
It seems that matter has no features of its own and, unlike our modern scientific understanding of matter, matter is completely impotent. While a scientist can explain the difference between silver and gold by the atomic structure of both and can even turn non-gold atoms into gold atoms by inserting the correct number of protons, Aristotle's matter only plays a secondary role to the form.
If a physicist used an atom smasher and turned a carbon atom into another element, it seems that matter itself has a role to play in shaping the behavior of matter, but this seems so at odds with prime matter of Aristotle.
What exactly is matter in Aristotle's eyes?
What can be said about Aristotle's matter that is informative?
Does modern physics make "Aristotle's forms" superfluous?
Is there a good reason to believe in hylomorphic compounds?
For Aristotle, what makes a gold nugget a gold nugget is the form of gold and what makes the silver nugget a silver nugget is the form of silver, but what can be said specifically about matter in Aristotle's metaphysics?
It seems that matter has no features of its own and, unlike our modern scientific understanding of matter, matter is completely impotent. While a scientist can explain the difference between silver and gold by the atomic structure of both and can even turn non-gold atoms into gold atoms by inserting the correct number of protons, Aristotle's matter only plays a secondary role to the form.
If a physicist used an atom smasher and turned a carbon atom into another element, it seems that matter itself has a role to play in shaping the behavior of matter, but this seems so at odds with prime matter of Aristotle.
What exactly is matter in Aristotle's eyes?
What can be said about Aristotle's matter that is informative?
Does modern physics make "Aristotle's forms" superfluous?
Is there a good reason to believe in hylomorphic compounds?
Comments (74)
Even as recently as the 1700s, people didn't think that things like life could be made in a lab. They didn't understand that the rules the universe goes by could be used by us because they didn't understand the rules. I think that matter to Aristotle was the building blocks of the world, only changeable by the will of the gods. (or for Aristotle specifically, the "Prime Mover") For an old Greek guy without the thousands of years of scientific inquiry that we have, I think that is a pretty good answer.
The formal cause is the statue.
The final cause is whatever the sculptor had intended.
The efficient cause is the sculptor.
The material cause is the marble...
However, what makes the material cause "marble" is certainly another form- the form of marble! And whatever that is is made of another form and so on and so on!
My speculation above is all I can provide. It's a shame we can't ask him.
A way to think of it is that we don't perceive form or matter (edit: as independent things), we perceive substances (like apples, people, etc.) Those substance have properties (form) that can be identified. But a substance is more than a formalism, it is also material - the substance pushes back when you push on it. This is Aristotle's hylomorphism.
Matter itself has no properties (the substance does) and can do nothing (it is the substance that acts or is acted upon). There's debate over whether Aristotle accepted the existence of prime matter. And it's difficult to see what sense can be made of it if it has no properties and cannot act.
Hope that helps.
What can be said of the matter that isn't just, "well, it is part of a substance..." or "its the part of the substance that makes the form feel solid..."
Is MU an Aristotelian die hard or fanboy?
Quoting tim wood
Why should matter have anything to do with whether a kitten has the potential to become a cat? Sure, matter may come along and be part of the cat substance, but matter only does what the form of the cat impels the matter to do.
A problem with this is we perceive properties. So if properties are form, we perceive form. Also "pushes back when you push on it" is a property, a property that we perceive.
He did have access to the writings of the atomists, right? I think their reasoning was superior, but lost out for other reasons.
Perhaps he did. It's hard for experts to get a grasp on what the people of the past knew, let alone doofuses on the internet like me. Maybe he was proposing a counter to that or maybe his argument built upon it. I don't have a clue.
The matter is only distinguished by its specific form in a substance. For example, a house can materially be made of either brick or wood (or both). But bricks and wood also have formal properties. And bricks can materially be made of clay or concrete. And so on until you get to the basic elements (which were notably very different for Aristotle than for us today). So matter is an abstraction over bricks, wood, clay, gold, etc.
Perhaps a useful analogy here is with shape. A square could be morphed into a trapezium by a suitable transformation, i.e., its form can change. And they are distinguishable shapes. But there are no shapes independent of any form. Shape is an abstraction over squares and trapeziums.
Quoting Walter Pound
I think that about covers it. The intended distinction is between the form of a house (which might also be captured in a blueprint, or as an idea in our minds) and the house itself, which is a material instance of that form.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I should have said that we don't perceive form or matter as independent things. I agree that we perceive that grass is green, etc.
Consider that in Aristotle`s physics, matter is the aspect of a thing which does not change when change occurs to a thing. It is therefore the principle which provides for the reality of the temporal continuity of existence. Imagine a changing thing. At one moment it is assumed to have a definite form, and at the next moment it is assume to have a slightly different definite form. Strictly speaking, from a logic of formal identity, at the second moment it is not the same thing as it was at the first moment. The idea that it is logically necessary that these are two distinct things, provided fodder for sophistry and paradoxes of infinite regress. So Aristotle wanted a law of identity which would corroborate our observed experience, and allow that one and the same thing could have temporal extension despite the fact that changes occur to that thing during the time of its existence. So he posited "matter" as the underlying thing which does not change, providing for the observed temporal continuity of existence of a thing, despite the fact that the thing's form is continually changing.
I am having a hard time following Aristotle's philosophy so I would be grateful if you could help see where I go wrong in here. I decided to reply sentence by sentence so that you could pinpoint what I get wrong. Additionally, could you recommend me either videos or books on Aristotle that can help explain his thought to me? Thanks!
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This tells me what matter does and not what matter is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, this is what matter does in regard's to Aristotle's metaphysical framework; this doesn't tell me what matter is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If the form is not material, then why suppose that the form changes at all when time passes? We don't see how immaterial entities behave and we don't see how forms behave alone as Aristotle believed matter and form must exist together. Recall that the relationship between matter and form is asymmetrical, so when I see a kitten become a cat I should conclude that the form is responsible for this changing state of matter.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Let us suppose that a toddler has a Rubik's cube in her hands and that the toddler messes with the Rubik's cube and alters the arrangement of the Rubik's cube, for a period of time. Because the arrangement of the matter at t2 is not identical to the arrangement of matter at t1, we should conclude that, after the toddler is tired of messing with the arrangement of the Rubik's cube, a new Rubik's cube is in the hands of the toddler,? Given that the substance of the Rubik's cube is a composite of form and matter and that the matter is the only thing that we see change, why should the Rubik's cube change its identity when it is being altered? Unless we start qualifying what it means for a substance's matter to be a substance's matter, why does the spatial arrangement of the Rubik's cube's "matter" determine whether the Rubik's cube is the same as it was before the toddler's manipulation?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Form and matter are not identical to each other so, in regards to each other, they are distinct things, but they both are part of a substance and make up the substance. However, from your previous sentence, it seems that Aristotle wanted to say that although a thing's matter changed, such as Theseus' ship, it does not mean that the thing itself was altered. Although it may be counter-intuitive to say that a thing does not persist as time passes, just because it sounds unintuitive to deny the identity of the ship, as it changes its matter, that does not sound like a good reason to conclude that the ship is the same ship. What other, hopefully, more rigorous argument does Aristotle give?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, it looks like my suspicion was correct. It looks like Aristotle operates on the most naive form of experientialism. Why assume that our experience of the actual state of affairs is an accurate representation of the actual state of affairs?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
When you say, "does not change" do you mean to say that matter does not come into or out of being or that matter is static? I have heard that Aristotle subscribed to a relational theory of time and if Aristotle really believed that matter did not change, then that would suggest that matter is timeless.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If an apple is a substance, and a substance is a composite of matter and form, then I only experience a change in the substance's matter when I cut the apple in half with a knife. I don't experience a change in the substance's form.
Do you think modern physics has undermined the matter of Aristotle? I gave an example of how matter itself alter's the nature of matter (e.g. shoot protons into a carbon atom and you will get an atom with different behavior)?
Aristotle's forms seems to be that which distinguishes one substance from another.
Could Aristotle's form be translated as the atomic number of elements, by extension, the molecular constituents of compounds and ratios of mixtures?
In modern science, matter is not impotent and matter itself determines its behavior. Consider when a magnet attracts some metal only when the metal is magnetized, this is a change of matter's behavior using only matter.
Aristotle: Form makes matter
Science: Atomic number makes matter
So isn't Form = Atomic number?
I really can't recommend anything to you here, because I see so much variance in interpretation. The best is to read Aristotle yourself, but there is so much material it takes a long time.
Quoting Walter Pound
The problem with this question is that we really cannot say "what" matter is. This is because the "whatness" of a thing is its form. So any statement of what a thing is, is a formula, a statement of a thing's form.
Quoting Walter Pound
The shape, size, colour, etc., all the descriptive terms which we use to explain what a thing is, are referring to the thing's form. All that we see, and in anyway perceive of the thing is its form. So we do see a thing's form changing.
Quoting Walter Pound
The problem isn't quite the same today, as it was in Aristotle's time, because logic has progressed, and Aristotle did a lot for that. At his time, a thing was identified by the description of "what" it is, its form. So, the Rubik's cube at one moment, has a different description from the description that it has at the next moment, therefore the two instances of existence, are instances of two distinct things, the identity of a thing being given by its description.. Aristotle's law of identity is designed to avoid this problem. But the assumption is that the matter, of which the cube is composed, remains the same, therefore the cube's material identity remains the same, while the form of it changes.
Quoting Walter Pound
Under the logic in use at Aristotle's time a thing's identity was its description. Therefore if the cube had one description at one time, and another description at another time, these two instances could not be instances of "the same" thing.
Quoting Walter Pound
The thing's matter does not change, the form changes, that's the point. Theseus' Ship is a more complex issue which mixes the two forms of identity.
[Quoting Walter Pound
Yes, that's the whole point, matter itself does not change.
Quoting Walter Pound
When you cut the apple, you have change its form, by dividing it in two. All the matter remains as the same matter, but it is now in a different form.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Isn't the "whatness" a thing's essence?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
All those things that we experience seem to be features of objects. If so, then what reason does Aristotle give that there are actual objects of which they are the features; given that there is nothing that can be said about matter in itself, then why not just say that features are all there is- the bundle theorists could explain our experience without leaving things unexplained. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle_theory
Matter cannot be eternal, Aristotle demonstrates this with the cosmological argument. Matter is placed in the category of potential, as being the potential for change in relation to the forms of things, which actually change. According to the cosmological argument, anything eternal must be actual. This means that there is no such thing as prime matter, matter without form, as the idea of prime matter, is unintelligible.
Quoting Walter Pound
Yes, essence is a form. And we need to distinguish "form" in two distinct senses. The thing's essence is the form of the thing, what human beings have within their minds, the abstracted essence. But each particular thing has a form proper to itself, in its material existence, making it the thing that it is rather than something else. The difference is that the form of the thing, which is proper to the thing itself, in its material existence, includes accidentals, whereas the essence of the thing, the form in the human mind, does not include accidentals.
Quoting Walter Pound
This leaves us with the problem of temporal continuity in a changing thing. At one moment the thing is "X" according to its features, and at the next moment the thing is something different, "Y", according to its features. These are two distinct things. Aristotle posits "matter" as an underlying thing which doesn't change, to allow for temporal continuity. At both times, the thing is the same thing "X", but having different features at each moment of existence.
Aristotle thought that matter was eternal and that there was a prime mover that made matter change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_of_the_world
No, the behavior is partially at least partially determined by the form or arrangement of the particles within the atom. The particles taken as a group themselves behave differently depending on how they are arranged, so that behavior cannot be determined only by the particles themselves.
Laws are descriptions of the regularities of nature; they are not prescriptive. They are not entities in themselves.
And I said that the arrangement of matter can be explained with matter and gave an example of charge attraction. Forms seem superfluous.
For example, the arrangement of H20 is unlike the arrangement of CH4 and the behaviors of a large collection of H20 or CH4 are also different, but this can be explained with modern physics and matter.
Quoting Theorem
These words are only names for whatever is observed. They are all names of what matter is or does. You want to suggest that "arrangement," "regularity" and "structure" are not exhausted by matter and that these things must be evidence for something beyond matter and there is no reason for that conclusion.
Quoting Theorem
A carbon atom has in itself the kind of charge that attracts the charges of four hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom has in itself the kind of charge that attracts two hydrogen atoms; however, a Helium atom has no such charge that could attract hydrogen atoms and all this is inherent to matter and no "forms" are necessary to explain the behavioral differences between carbon atoms and oxygen atoms.
Quoting Theorem
Aristotle describes matter as only possessing potential and it is the forms that actualize those potentials, but modern physics demonstrates that matter is not a hapless impotent part of reality, but an active participant in why matter behaves as it does; matter has causal powers that
determines how matter behaves.
The difference between the modern view and Aristotle's view is that in the modern view, matter implicitly subsumes form (which is what talk of structure, properties and behavior relates to). Whereas Aristotle makes the distinction between matter and form explicit in his definition of substance.
So the same world is being described, but they are two different frameworks for understanding it. On an Aristotelian view, an independent carbon atom is a hylomorphic substance and, as such, has identifiable characteristics and behavior. But note also that carbon is matter relative to a carbon-dioxide molecule, itself a hylomorphic substance that, in turn, has identifiable characteristics and behavior.
This is also what Theorem was explaining earlier. The main point to keep in mind is that the term matter is being used differently in the Aristotelian and modern frameworks.
The difference is that a substance is a composite of matter and form instead of reality being composed of just matter.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
Quoting Andrew M
The problem is that few today argue that carbon is a composite of matter and form; instead, anything that extends in space is considered to be part of the physical world and is classified as matter. Additionally, few today will say that matter's potential is "actualized" by forms and that matter has no causal power of its own- this is why I referenced electric charges and chemical bonds as examples of how Aristotle got matter wrong.
So this statement:
Quoting Andrew M
is not correct since Aristotle suggests that "matter" is impotent and can only ever be under the influence of a form. There is an asymmetric relationship between form and matter that I can't imagine most physicalists subscribing to.
Sure there is. If the arrangement of the atoms was simply identical with the atoms themselves then all arrangements would be identical. That's obviously not the case.
Quoting Walter Pound
The behavioral differences are due to the number and arrangement of sub-atomic particles. The number and arrangement of the particles just is the form of each element. The matter is the particles, the form is the way that they're arranged. The arrangement and the particles cannot be identical, as discussed above.
Quoting Walter Pound
This is just a simple case of using the same words in different ways. Aristotle does not deny that material objects have intrinsic causal powers. In fact, this is exactly what he does claim! However, for Aristotle all material objects are hylemorphic compounds of matter and form. Matter doesn't exist in its own right. Form doesn't exist in its own right. Only material objects (i.e. substances) exist in their own right. To say that modern physics contradicts Aristotle's is just to misunderstand Aristotle's metaphysics.
Again, what matter does is not what matter is. Suppose that there is a Hydrogen atom and that the hydrogen atom combines with another Hydrogen atom so that h2 is produced, the word "arrangement" is just a linguistic tool to describe what physical reality is doing, but what physical reality does is not what physical reality is.
Quoting Theorem
This is how Aristotle may try to interpret modern sub-atomic particles and atoms, but he would argue that forms of carbon actualize the potential of matter and this is so because of Aristotle's metaphysical framework where matter is just potential that is only ever actualized by forms. The question is why subscribe to this metaphysical framework in the first place? The debate isn't whether Aristotle's metaphysical framework can be made compatible with modern physics, but whether we have a good reason to even accept it when there are more parsimonious alternatives available.
Quoting Theorem
Whatever is in actuality has causal power over whatever is in potentiality. Substances that are composed of matter and form have causal power over potentialities. This is not at all like stating that physical reality has causal power since physicalism does not entail hypomorphic composites.
Quoting Theorem
So we agree that Aristotle is not simply stating that matter has causal power.
Quoting Theorem
What you just called "material objects" are hylomorphic composites, but "material objects" can be defined as anything that extends in space. A planet is a material object, Methane is a material object and so on.
Quoting Theorem
If you assume that H2O is a hylomorphic compound or that protons and Carbon atoms are hylomorphic compounds, then you would be correct to say that modern physics does not contradict Aristotle; however, this would be begging the question. What reason is there to suppose that a proton is a composite of form and "matter?" Assuming that Aristotle is correct, then whatever one imagines matter to be, it cannot be protons, or quarks or electrons or any fundamental particle or fundamental force, since those things are all composites of form and some nebulous thing called "matter." What informatively can be said of Aristotle's matter is that it is a "thing" that is impotent and exists as a potential for which forms actualize and exists in an asymmetric relationship with forms since matter does not act on forms, but forms do act on matter.
Yes, but the materialist is simply including the characteristics of substances (i.e., their form) in his definition of matter. It's only a semantic difference.
Quoting Walter Pound
He didn't get matter wrong, he simply defined it differently. For Aristotle, the same empirical observations find their explanation at the substance level, not the material level. To a first approximation, a materialist's matter just is Aristotle's substance.
Quoting Walter Pound
Maybe. There exist substances (rocks, trees, people, particles) and we observe that they interact, change, and can be created and destroyed. In Aristotelian terms, this is a transition of matter from one form to another. Time is a measure of that, the direction of which is also asymmetric. So think of it as a state transition. The state (or form) of a physical system at one moment in time determines what will happen at the next moment in time.
Aristotle is more famous for his principles of logic than anything else. Long after his observational works were replaced by the modern sciences of physics and biology, his logic remained a respectable subject of study
There's a number of concepts involve in what I wrote, and the relationships between them are best explained in his Metaphysics. To begin with, there's at least a couple distinct places, one in his logic, Categories I believe, and another in his Metaphysics where he discusses the incompatibility between being and becoming, this is a problem outlined by Plato. If reality only consists of "what is", and "what is not" being and not being, then change, or becoming is unintelligible, as it escapes the logical principles of being and not being. When there is change, what is at one moment is different from what is at the next. You might say that change is in between. At each moment we have what is, and what is not, and this is different at each consecutive moment of change. If, when we posit something between the two states of being to account for the "becoming" (changing), we posit another state of being, then we have the same problem all over again, and we set up an infinite regress, never able to account for what happens between two states of being. What happens between is becoming, or change. Aristotle complained that sophists had taken advantage of this problem to prove the reality of ridiculous scenarios.
He discusses two possible resolutions. One would be to allow for violation of the law of non-contradiction to account for becoming. The thing could be, some sort of unity of what it is at t1, and what it is at t2, and also what it is not at t1, and what it is not at t2, all together, when it is changing from the first state of being to the second. The other possible resolution is to allow for violation of the law of excluded middle. He pushes for the latter option through development of the concept of potential. "Potential" refers to what neither is nor is not, it may or may not be. It is a concept derived from the way that we understand future events which may or may not be. It is not acceptable to assign true or false to a future event which may or may not occur (there is the famous sea battle tomorrow example). And, even if it comes to pass that the event occurs, it is unacceptable to look back, and say that before the event occurred, it was true that the event will occur. There is simply neither truth nor falsity to the subject, and I believe this is the basis for modern modal logic. Aristotle's might be a firm denial of eternalism. But positions like eternalism make change completely unintelligible, whereas Aristotle allows some fundamental principles in an attempt to bring becoming and change into the realm of intelligibility. Some modern positions like dialethism, and dialectical materialism, move to dismiss the law of non-contradiction, to deal with the reality of becoming. This stems from Hegel's dialectic of being, in which being and not-being are subsumed within, so as to co-exist within the concept of becoming.
So in Aristotle's physics, matter is placed in the category of potential. As the potential for change, it gives reality to, as the foundation for understanding, that which neither is nor is not, in the physical world. And, in his logic, the reality of a thing's inherent material element is implicit in his law of identity. His law of identity states that a thing is the same as itself. Those who misunderstand the importance of this principle will dismiss it as a useless tautology. But this principle of identity removes a things identity from what we say it is (that's what contributes to the sophistry), and dictates that each thing has its own identity proper to itself. It's the grounding for realism. And, the particular thing, the individual, the material object, is what substantiates all logic. "Substance', in its most fundamental use of the term refers to the material individual, so that when it's not grounded in the reality of material particulars, logic loses its substance. However, the material element of the particulars, and this might be characterized as the accidentals, leaves a part of the particular as fundamentally unintelligible to logic.
Quoting Walter Pound
The unmoved mover is an eternal form, circular motion. He introduced this idea after the demonstration, in his Metaphysics, that anything eternal must be actual, formal. It is a faulty idea because the circular motion requires something which is moving, matter. An eternal motion without anything which is actually moving is incoherent. Then the matter (potential) which is moving would also be eternal, and this contradicts his own conclusion that anything eternal must be actual.
Right, they are distinct, which is exactly the point! Using your lingo, what a thing "does" (the way it's arranged) is just as real as what it "is" (the particles themselves). Look, if you want to deny the reality of form, go ahead, but you're just unwittingly throwing out all of modern physics with it. Modern physics is just maths after all.
Quoting Walter Pound
Yes, there are good reasons. We've been discussing them already.
Quoting Walter Pound
Your mangling Aristotle’s metaphysics through your misunderstanding. Aristotle would not have denied that entities such as hydrogen and oxygen atoms have their own causal powers. It just that Aristotle had the good sense to realize that you can’t eliminate form from your ontology without courting absurdity. When Aristotle says that matter is the principle of potentiality he means something very specific. Hydrogen and oxygen are concrete, material particulars with their own causal powers. And yet, taken individually, hydrogen and oxygen atoms are only potentially a water molecule. That's what it means to say that they are the material cause of the water molecule. They play the role of matter with respect to the molecule H20 because something else is required in order for them to actualize a water molecule. The number and arrangement of atoms plays the role of formal cause with respect to the water molecule because the it is what the makes the molecule a water molecule as opposed to some other type of molecule. The physical interaction between the atoms that leads to the actualization of the molecule plays the role of efficient cause, and the physical laws that govern the behavior of the atoms plays the role of final cause, reliably “directing” the interaction toward a particular outcome.
Quoting Walter Pound
Because denying it leads to absurdity.
Quoting Walter Pound
Sorry, but you’re just wrong. Aristotle’s definition of matter and form are functional in nature. As such, something counts as matter or form based on the role it plays with respect to something else. We saw this with the H20 example above. Hydrogen and oxygen are matter with respect to H20 because when combined into a particular arrangement/structure they form H20. Hydrogen and oxygen are only potentially H20, they need to be arranged in a certain way to actually become H20.
This really shouldn’t be controversial and only seems controversial because you’re failing to distinguish between physics and metaphysics (as I mentioned in my first post). Matter and form are metaphysical principles, not empirical entities. To treat them as empirical concepts is to commit a basic category error.
That does not follow at all; please google nominalism if you are confused about other possibilities.
Quoting Theorem
Modern physics goes on fine without dubious metaphysics.
Quoting Theorem
Your arguments fail since you conflate the is of identity with the is of prediction.
Quoting Theorem
You are misinformed.
Quoting Theorem
Aristotle would deny that matter, by itself, has causal power over forms; Aristotle would argue that the form of hydrogen actualizes the potential of matter. The hydrogen in the scientist's lab is not "matter" for Aristotle, but a hylomorphic compound!
Quoting Theorem
Question begging.
Quoting Theorem
Agreed, as Aristotle interpreted matter and form, respectively, as potentiality and actuality. What a substance, the hylomorphic compound of form and matter, is is its actuality, but the substance has an ability to become its potentiality- for example, an actual caterpillar is a potential butterfly.
Quoting Theorem
For Aristotle, hydrogen and oxygen are NOT "concrete, material particulars with their own causal powers." Aristotle believed that the essence of a thing was its substance and necessarily composed of matter and form; therefore, Aristotle would describe an atom, such as hydrogen and oxygen, as a hylomorphic compound of matter and form.
Quoting Theorem
You want to identify the MATERIAL cause of the water molecule as hydrogen and oxygen atoms, but it is a FORM that makes something hydrogen and oxygen; indeed, it seems that all of what one would ordinarily consider as the properties of things are aspects of the form of the thing. Given this fact, what makes the cause "material?" Furthermore, you mention that atoms are potentially molecules, but surely what a thing is "potentially" depends on what it is ACTUALITY like and depends on the properties (or the aspects of the FORM) of the thing- again, I don't see what role matter plays here...
Quoting Theorem
Again, you just repeat yourself and you confuse the Aristotlean understanding of matter with a physicalist understanding of matter. No physicalist will agree with you that hydrogen and oxygen are just a piece of something like prime matter; that wouldn't make any sense...
Quoting Theorem
As stated already, what one might think of as the properties of a thing are aspects of the form of the thing. This really should show you that there is no way to ever tell when matter is present and when matter is not present- it just has to be asserted as the case. In truth, it appears that its forms all the way down to the most basic substances that make up reality.
Quoting Theorem
Again, whatever one might think of as an efficient cause, say the electrons of hydrogen and oxygen, are themselves hylomorphic form/matter composites and it is the form of the electrons that determines what electrons are like; what a thing is potentially depends on what it is actually like so it depends on the properties (aspects of the form) of the thing. Your last point about the final cause is contingent on the truth of other parts of Aristotle's metaphysical framework, but that is the very thing in question and there little convincing reason to buy into Aristolean metaphysics.
Quoting Theorem
Aristotle's metaphysics is no help in avoiding absurdity.
Quoting Theorem
This is a nice sounding story.
Quoting Theorem
Not controversial? I am willing to bet that the majority of philosophers reject Aristotle's metaphysics and they clearly know that metaphysics can do well if it is empirically informed with science.
Lol...you were the one who said that what physical reality does is distinct from what a physical reality is. Perhaps it's you who is confused.
Quoting Walter Pound
Still conflating physics with metaphysics, I see.
Quoting Walter Pound
Assertion. Feel to actually demonstrate this.
Quoting Walter Pound
No, I've offered reasons, you just haven't understood them yet.
Quoting Walter Pound
Yes, they are.
[quote="Walter Pound]Aristotle believed that the essence of a thing was its substance and necessarily composed of matter and form; therefore, Aristotle would describe an atom, such as hydrogen and oxygen, as a hylomorphic compound of matter and form.[/quote]
Right, and hylomorphic compounds (i.e. material substances) are concrete material particulars. For Aristotle, concrete, material/physical objects are hylemorphic compounds of matter and form. As it says in the very first sentence in the SEP article on matter and form:
[quote=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]Aristotle famously contends that every physical object is a compound of matter and form.[/quote]
Quoting Walter Pound
You are once again overlooking the fact that matter and form are functional concepts. Hydrogen is itself a hylemorphic compound of matter and form, but it can also play the role of matter within higher-order hylemorphic compounds.
Quoting Walter Pound
Great, because that is not what I claimed.
Sorry, somehow I posted my response before I was finished. The remainder will follow in a second post below...
No, it can't be forms all the way down, or there would be no potentiality, and thus no change. There must be a principle of pure potentiality. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "there is no way to ever tell when matter is present". For material substances, matter is always present by definition. And we're not "just asserting it to be the case", we postulate prime matter because the alternative - no change - is absurd.
Quoting Walter Pound
Yes it is.
Quoting Walter Pound
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Quoting Walter Pound
I willing to bet that the majority of philosophers have not studied Aristotelian metaphysics in any depth because if they had they'd realize that Aristotelian metaphysics has much more going for it than modern materialism, especially with respect to the empirical sciences. Having completed an undergraduate thesis in philosophy myself, I can attest to the fact that Aristotle's thought was not well understood by the majority of the faculty, mostly because they simply never took the time to seriously consider it (and I attended a university with a prestigious philosophy department). However, Aristotelian metaphysics is making a come-back within professional philosophy, mostly due to the recognition of the multitudinous difficulties facing modern materialistic/physicalistic metaphysics.
Change obtains because things are in motion. It could also obtain acausally or indeterministically.
Possibilities simply amount to a state not being impossible given contingent facts. "Potential" is often used with a more limited connotation a la possibilities that are statistically more probable than other possibilities.
Things like "principles of pure potentiality" don't exist outside of our thought.
That's practically vacuous, like saying "things change because things change", for motion is just a type of change. What accounts for motion if potentiality is unreal?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Prime matter (pure potency) is postulated in order to explain substantial change. It's not clear to me how to explain substantial change without it. In my experience, appealing to "motion" won't get us very far.
What happened to this part: "Possibilities simply amount to a state not being impossible given contingent facts. "Potential" is often used with a more limited connotation a la possibilities that are statistically more probable than other possibilities"?
C'mon, man, you've got to read.
Furthermore, you asserted:
Quoting Terrapin Station
but never actually offered a reason for believing this. And please don't reply that "there's no empirical evidence" because that is just a category mistake, as was already discussed.
I don't think it needs to be explained.
At any rate, there's no way I'd get into a "Does this work/count as an explanation" discussion without you first giving your general criteria for explanations.
Quoting Theorem
You'd have to make most of those terms not just gobbledygook first.
Quoting Theorem
The only reason we need is that there's zero evidence of extramental principles, or extramental abstracts period. That's not a category mistake. If something exists, there's evidence available of it.
Okie dokie.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Nah, I'll pass. I'm more interested in discussing the topic in the OP.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Those are all standard topics of metaphysics.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No sorry, it's a category mistake to expect empirical evidence for metaphysical entities.
The bulk of metaphysics is ontology. It's a mistake to expect empirical evidence of existents?
No, not matter: substance.
No. In metaphysics, sometimes non-empirical entities are postulated because the denial of their existence leads to absurdities. It's a mistake to ask for empirical evidence for those.
The truth is, I've had more than one course on Aristotle, and have written numerous papers on his work. There's a heck of a lot there to study.
Quoting tim wood
It's not just a naming problem though, it's a problem of getting an epistemology which is consistent with one's ontology. If it was just a naming problem we'd say that yesterday it was X and today it is Y. But this means that we have two distinct objects, X and Y. But we really believe, and our ontology follows our belief, that X and Y are one and the same object with temporal continuity, despite having changed. So for the sake of epistemology we want to say that it is two distinct objects, name them as distinct objects, and get it over with. But our ontology, and true belief, is that there is a temporal continuity, one object which is changing.
Quoting tim wood
it is clear that Aristotle had great respect for the reality of change, that's why it was such an important part of his physics. The problem is that we understand "change" in a way such that some aspect changes, while another aspect stays the same. We do not understand it as a complete ending of what was at one moment, with a completely new beginning at the next. We understand that something persists, and stays the same through the change. So we have contradictory principles within the concept of change, one aspect stays the same as it was, while another aspect is not the same as it was.
Quoting tim wood
The problem is that "continuous process" was fundamentally unintelligible to the logic of his time. That's evident in Zeno.s paradoxes. And, I would argue that quantum physics demonstrates that continuous process remains fundamentally unintelligible. Aristotle posited "matter" as the aspect of reality which gives us the appearance of continuity. The problem is that this concept really tells us very little. It tells us that we observe a certain temporal continuity, but this temporal continuity is fundamentally unintelligible. Nevertheless, he posited "matter" to account for the temporal continuity which appears to us. Newton described the temporal continuity with what we call inertia, and now the inertia of mass has been replaced by the conservation of energy. But continuous process remains fundamentally unintelligible.
Quoting tim wood
The thinking about thinking is central to his ethics. The problems of metaphysics were far from solved, as they remain today, but Aristotle figured contemplation, thinking about thinking was the most virtuous activity.
,Quoting tim wood
Right, the problem of continuity remains, but it is now in an evolved state. Probability is not a resolution though, because it cannot replace explanation.. Mathematics with probability brings us to the point of prediction. But being able to predict is far from understanding. Consider that Thales predicted a solar eclipse far before the heliocentric model was proposed. That's the power of mathematics, we can predict without understanding. The spatiotemporal map gives us the capacity to follow patterns, but it doesn't give us the principles behind the patterns..
If they exist, then empirical evidence would be available for them--even if we haven't discovered it yet.
At any rate, what would you take to be an example of this?
No it wouldn't. You're just begging the question.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Prime matter and substantial form.
Theyd have properties, right?
Quoting Theorem
What is it with there being so many Aristotelians on this board? Both "prime matter" and "substantial form" are nonsense, as is most Aristotle.
They have characteristics, yes, but not empirically measurable properties.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yawn. More assertions and ad homs.
I'm all done here.
What is not being appreciated, is that the OP is written 'post Descartes'. Descartes divided the whole issue along completely different lines to Aristotle. So from a post-Cartesian point of view, of course Aristotle's conception of matter doesn't make sense. But the question uncritically operates from a post-Cartesian point of view, which of course we nowadays all embody, without understanding what that shift in perspective really entails. In order to properly critique the Aristotelian conception of 'hyle' requires an understanding of the context in which such an idea made sense.
How would there be a property that's not empirically measurable (whether it's been measured yet or not)?
There wasn't an epoch in which there were real abstracts or in which properties were somehow separable from substance, etc. It's maybe understandable why Aristotle made the mistakes that he did, but that doesn't make them not mistakes.
The Cartesian division, body and mind is a step backward from Aristotle. That's the division, along with its problems, that Plato dealt with. The problems, in dividing reality along those lines are irresolvable as Plato demonstrated. Aristotle's solution was to divide the entirety of reality by dualist principles (matter and form). So as where Aristotle made a move to bring dualism into the range of intelligibility, the Cartesian shift is a move which makes dualism appear incomprehensible.
What do you mean "how"? Non-measurable properties inhere in substances the same way that measurable properties do. They're just aren't measurable. Examples would include phenomenal, intentional and normative properties.
But I wasn't actually talking about properties, I was talking about entities like prime matter and substantial form which do not have properties and do not exist in and of themselves. They exist only as metaphysical components of material substances and are postulated in order to explain change, identity, individuation, properties, powers, etc. You can deny their existence if you want, but you can't appeal to lack of empirical evidence without both begging the question and making a category mistake.
Those are brain states. Brain states are measurable.
Why would you think you need to explain change, anyway, by the way?
If there were a lack of change, would that need to be explained?
No, they're not. That should be painfully obvious from the fact that they have literally nothing in common with brain states.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Because some people argue that change is not real, while others argue that permanence is not real.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I have no idea.
Yeah, they are. What they have in common with brain states is that they're identical to them. That seems painfully obvious to me.
Quoting Theorem
So just in case someone argues that x is not real, then x needs to be explained?
I deny that they are identical by pointing out that they share nothing in common and you retort by re-asserting that they are identical. Nice one!
Look, brains are wet, solid, made of neurons, weigh about 3 pounds on average, have a volume of about 1450 cubic centimeters on average, etc. Thoughts, feelings, sensations and values literally have none of those properties and it is blindingly obvious that that they are not even the kinds of things that could have those properties. If you can't see that, then I think we'll have to end the conversation here.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, not always. Look, if the question "what is the nature of change?" holds no interest for you, or makes no sense to you, then fine. I'm not going to try to convince you that it's a question worth pursuing.
If "they share nothing in common" is sufficient as a comment, why isn't "they are identical" sufficient? Why should I be doing more than you're doing?
Quoting Theorem
Likewise, here, I simply have to say, "Thoughts, feelings, sensations and values literally have those properties"--why wouldn't that be a sufficient comment if your denial is a sufficient comment?
I think it's raining outside, but I'll go and check to make sure. I checked and, yes, it is. How much did my thought weigh? On your view, is that a meaningful question or is it a category mistake?
Aristotle did not say that properties were separable from substance, he expressly denied it. He was an immanent realist about universals and rejected Platonic realism.
Didn't we do this already? (Or was it someone else?--I don't recall). It doesn't make sense to talk about the weight of all physical phenomena. I didn't pick apart each property he was listing in the post, and I didn't talk about the fact that mental phenomena are not identical to the entirety of the brain at all times--it's a subset of brain structure/function, because I knew it was pointless to get into details with him.
I don't think we've discussed this before. But note that it wasn't a minor detail, it was his main point. It doesn't make sense to talk about the weight, or volume, or solidity of thoughts, feelings, sensations or values at all. They are dispositions and occurrences, not substances.
Nonetheless they are still fully grounded in the physical and natural world. And that was also Aristotle's position as contrasted with Plato's.