" Metaphysics Z 17's Ontological Deduction of Form as Principle and Primary Substance through the Analysis of Becoming" Parte de ISSN: 2159-5313ISSN: 2159-5321 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Discourse at 2018 American Maritain Association Meeting on Thomism and Science. Philadelphia on March 1-3. Section Form and Science. Aristotle's definitive demonstration of the essence of substance in the framework of the hylomorphic theory is found in chapter 17 of the Book Zeta of Metaphysics. There he concludes that form is the primary substance and the first cause of the generable and corruptible substance. The theory of the form understood as the deepest cause of any material entity within the framework of the Hylomorphism, is called to play a fundamental explanatory function of the principles that sustain the scientific theory and experimentation in biology, neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, physics, and in the other particular sciences in the third millennium.
Explaining Substance: Aristotle's Explanatory Hylomorphism in Metaphysics Z.17
Rhizomata 8/1, 2020
Abstract: Aristotle’s main thesis in Metaphysics Z.17, which takes substance to be a principle and a cause of some sort (1041a9–10, 1041b7–9, b30–31), is of a piece with the assumption that hylomorphic compounds are unified wholes (1041b11–12) – an assumption that proves critical to settling an important controversy about the form-matter relationship in that chapter, i. e. whether matter and form are mutually indistinguishable or rather just accidentally the same. By rejecting these interpretive options, this paper argues that form and matter are bound together by an essential link which, nevertheless, is able to preserve both (i) the different explanatory roles that each of those principles play vis-à-vis specific substances and (ii) the compound’s proper unity.
Being, Substance and Form in Aristotle’s Metaphysics
Philosophy and Progress, 2019
The concepts of ‘being‘, ‘substance‘ and ‘form‘ are central to Aristotle‘s metaphysics. According to him, there are different modes of being, and of all these different modes of being, substance is the primary mode of being, and First Philosophy is especially concerned with the mode of being which belongs to substances. Again, he tries to give an analysis of what a substance is in terms of the concept of form, and claims that it is essence or form that may be called substance in the truest and fullest sense. Thus we see that the concepts of ‘being‘, ‘substance‘ and ‘form‘ are intimately related. This paper is an attempt to analyze clearly what Aristotle means by these three important concepts. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#61-62; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2017 P 43-52
Philosophy Study, January 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1, 16-42 doi: , 2019
This research represents another of the various different versions of the Hylomorphism of the third millennium (some closer and some less close to the thought of Aristotle). Its aim is to find the most profound and basic intrinsic explanation of the being of the sense-perceptible substance, by means of a systematic approach to the theory of substance developed in the central books of Aristotle's Metaphysics. The theory of substance is based on the hylomorphic conception of the sense-perceptible substance, and reaches its culmination in Chapter 17 of Metaphysics Book Zeta, where Aristotle develops the definitive deeper argument that demonstrates the essence of substance. The argument is developed through a rigorous analysis of the sense-perceptible thing and its elements during the existence of the thing and after its corruption. The result obtained by this analysis is that none of the material components of a sense-perceptible thing, nor the sum of all of them, explain the constitution of the sense-perceptible thing, or its nature. And the final conclusion is that there exists an entity distinct from all of the material components, which is the arrangement and the essence of the sense-perceptible thing, that is, its form. The form also emerges as the primary cause of the being of the sense-perceptible thing and the primary substance, because it acts as the cause of matter and of the hylomorphic compound, and possesses the characters of substantiality in the maximum degree, being separate (τὸ χωριστὸν) and being "a this" (τὸ τόδε τι). To take another angle, the soul is the form of biological organisms and man; and this investigation ends by establishing how the Aristotelian argument applies to a biological organism, and demonstrates that the soul is the first cause of this and the primary substance, by means of the distinction of the proximate matter and remote matter of the living being.
Defining Material Substance: A reading of Aristotle's Metaphysics Z.10-11
Rhizomata, 2022
This paper presents a reading of Metaphysics Z.10-11 according to which both chapters outline two main definienda: forms and material substances or compounds, each of which is governed by its own peculiar constraints. Forms include formal parts alone; furthermore, they are the main definable items and enjoy the strictest possible unity. However, this does not preclude Aristotle from upgrading material compounds (whose essence is stated in hylomorphic terms) to the status of definable items in their own right. Z.10 explains this contention by making the compound's sensible functional matter dependent on its form. This dependence affords the resulting compound an unusually tight form-matter relationship, strong enough to ensure its definability, despite falling short of the highest kind of unity that only forms display.
Refining the material substance: Aristotle's program in Metaphysics H1-5
Síntesis. http://intuslegerefilosofia.uai.cl/index.php/intusfilosofia/issue/view/28, 2018
ABSTRACT In Metaph. Z17, Aristotle makes a fresh start (1041a6) in his discussion on substance. Accordingly, the substantial form is principle and cause (1041a6-10, 1041b8), whereas the matter is element (1041b31) of material substances. Besides, Aristotle assumes (probably without justifying in Z17) that material substances are unified wholes (1041b11-12). These are two main theses in Z17 whose apparent absence in the summary of H1 (1042a3-23) has raised doubts among commentators as to the very project of H -a book commonly held to be a bunch of notes on Z. Regarding H’s positive results, commentators mostly focus on the introduction of the modal vocabulary of potentiality and actuality -into which Z’s distinction between matter and form is translated. So they find book’s H proper contribution only in H6’s solution to the problem of unity (1045a23-25, 1045b18-19). As a consequence of this reading, H1-5 remain overshadowed by H6, and therefore they are often neglected. Contrarily to this still predominant trend towards not taking H1- 5 on their own, I will here try to show that these chapters develop a program, in which H6’s conclusion is properly prepared. Stations of this program are H2-3, where Aristotle justifies the priority of form, and then H4-5, where he does the same for the unity of material compounds. So, I aim to show that H1-5 are a centerpiece in the completion and fulfilment of Z17’s theory of material substance. Keywords: form; cause; unity; potentiality; actuality.
Are Matter and Form Parts? Aristotle's and Neo-Aristotelian Hylomorphism
in R. Chiaradonna, F. Forcignanò, and F. Trabattoni (eds.), Ancient Ontologies, Contemporary Debates, «Discipline Filosofiche: Special issue», 28(1): 65-88., 2018
The paper takes issue with Koslicki's Neo-Aristotelian Mereology (NAM) and more particularly with her understanding of hylomorphism in mereological terms. NAM centres on two characteristic claims: (i) that Aristotle's form is a proper part of the composite substance; (ii) that there is a univocal notion of part, and a univocal notion of composition, which apply across the board and to matter and form in particular. The paper shows that both assumptions are questionable within an Aristotelian framework. More in general, it is argued that a strictly mereological approach does not do justice to the complex relationship between matter and form, and that considerations about identity are more crucial than mereology when it comes to understanding Aristotle's hylomorphism.
Hylomorphism in Aristotle's Physics
Ancient Philosophy, 2010
My topic is hylomorphism, by which I mean the doctrine that 'things due to nature' (tå fÊseiˆnta) are a kind of composite of matter and form. I first present and criticize a certain interpretation of this doctrine and then try to sketch an alternative. I limit myself to the Physics, concentrating especially on books 1 and 2. I say nothing about how the doctrine figures in other important texts such as the De anima or Metaphysics.