According to Thomism, does my phone have a FORM?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RealisticCatholic
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
RealisticCatholic said:
And if so, I’m confused on what this means. A random jumble of parts is only what we humans call a phone. But say my phone had all except the button, or all except the back panel, or all except the inside electronic parts ---- would each of these variations, too, have their own “form?”

Is “form” just an arbitrary assignment? Are forms even real, or just merely invented by humans?

Of course, I’m talking about form in the matter and form sense.

Just as we say the soul is the form of a human body.
Click to expand...
Form is what makes something what it is. And yes, artificial things are what they are by means of four causes. One of those causes being its final cause which may well be the intent of its maker.
You may call this flat thing with legs a stool. I might call the same thing a coffee table.
Different forms - depending on what the maker/user/beholder sees as its purpose.

Does it matter that the same assembly of matter can be said to demonstrate different forms dependent purely on the intent of the maker?
Not for me.
But it is probably a stumbling block for the modern scientific mind since the time of Descartes when our understanding of matter radically changed.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
But why even talk about “form” in a meaningful way if it’s just kind of already there via any organization of matter?

In other words, I’m having a hard time understanding the importance of recognizing the matter vs form distinction. I know forms are important to some proofs about God, like his intelligence, which is why I’m trying to better understand it.
Click to expand...
I don’t know if I’d start by saying the form organizes the matter. First, at a more fundamental level, a distinction is recognized between what something is and whether or not it is at all. If you know what something is (what it is essentially, or it’s “essence”), you don’t know at all whether any examples of it actually exist. Furthermore, all actual beings exist, in this way they are similar, but what makes one existing thing different from another is that what X is is different than what Y is.

The distinction between form and matter is along the same lines. We have material beings who are the same type of being, but who are themselves distinct. They have the same form or pattern, yet there are many of them. What makes them distinct is that they are made up of different matter in space and time. The form is the principle of similarity with other things of the same type, while the matter is the principle of difference that makes them distinct. These are co-principles for any material substance. And the form of a thing can’t be reduced to its matter, and the matter can’t be reduced to its form, so they are real, metaphysical principles and not merely conventional.

Substantial forms versus accidental forms really has to do with the unity of the object under consideration. Substantial forms, in a sense, exist as a unified whole even though they’re made of parts, with ends intrinsic to what they are, operating together. An atom would have a substantial form. So would a molecule. So would a one-celled organism. So would a rose bush. So would a person. In all of these things, one might say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or at least that they’re operating according to some intrinsic principle. An accidental form, like a chair, or a boat, or even just a rock, is an arrangement of parts in which the relationship between the parts is (well) accidental. Consider a chair, the whole really has no intrinsic order to it. The parts have no relationship to each other beyond what’s been imposed on them by some extrinsic force. It’s arrangement isn’t a strong unity, just an extrinsic imposition on it. The same for a boat or any type of machine, or even a rock. The relationship between parts is really just accidental to each other, just happenstance, not some type of intrinsic unity.
 
I apologize, I realize I’m doing a terrible job of this right now. Sometimes a mood for philosophy takes me, other times… not. And I’m a bit pressed for time and distracted. Excuses, I know. I’ll just say another interesting line of argument which is in line with these distinctions is philosophical realism, which is an approach to abstract realities we call universals. One of the most systematic and also thorough approaches to defending realism against “anti-realist” philosophies I’ve encountered is in the book by Edward Feser called Five Proofs for the Existence of God, particularly in his chapter devoted to what he calls the “Augustinian Proof.”
 
RealisticCatholic said:
So what is the best argument for the existence of forms?
Click to expand...
Is there some reason why you should be given anything like that?

You have yet to acknowledge the arguments you were given. Do you think there is anything wrong with them?

Let’s note that you were saying this:
RealisticCatholic said:
Throw in essence if you’d like too. I think my bigger problem is I’m having trouble seeing how there is an objective “other” outside of mere jumblings of matter.
Click to expand...
And yet, it doesn’t look like you have presented some argument for belief that only “mere jumblings of matter” exist.

If you have some specific argument that gives you trouble, present it (as precisely, as you can). Demolishing it is likely to be what is required here, not some “best argument” as such.

And if you do not really have such an argument, ask yourself: why exactly are you still unpersuaded when you can’t answer the arguments? Is there something that motivates you to reject existence of something other than “mere jumblings of matter”? Some fear, perhaps?

Of course, if that is so, it might be that you will get better help in “Spirituality” (perhaps even “Prayer Intentions”) subforum…
 
@MPat I’m sorry if I’m not being articulate. I’m not a philosopher by trade. But I do WANT to believe in forms, in the Thomstic sense, not for their own sake — but because they are necessary for certain proofs relating to God’s intelligence (i.e., that he is a Mind and is personal).

So I may have to start from scratch.

For example, one thing that makes it shaky for me personally is simply the fact that not everyone accepts the Thomistic matter/form distinction. So it’s not as if it’s perfectly apparent to everyone.
If you have some specific argument that gives you trouble, present it (as precisely, as you can). Demolishing it is likely to be what is required here, not some “best argument” as such.
Click to expand...
I think it’s the realization that all material things are simply in constant shifting. It doesn’t matter if it’s a giraffe, made by nature, or a watch, artificially made by humans — it’s still a bunch of atoms that change over time.

And so I don’t know if the better word is essence, or what. But even while I admit there ARE arrangements of matter, I’m having a hard time seeing how this relates to an objective, individual reality that the matter participates in. Or like, if it’s not just a matter of human convention: “This jumble of matter ought to be called a giraffe! And this jumble over here looks enough like it to also be called a giraffe!”

This isn’t me being a materialist, since I do believe in God. I’m simply trying to find a philosophical framework that makes sense that can provide a solid basis for reasoning to God’s existence and attributes, etc.
 
Last edited:
Just wondering what is the significance of your question?

Why do you want to know if your phone has a form, what will this tell or prove to you?
 
Well, I said this in my last post, but I don’t blame you for not reading the entire thread.

Basically, I would prefer to have a solid understanding of Forms, because they are necessary in some proofs for the existence of God — as the First Cause with intelligence, Mind, and not merely an “It.”

But such proofs don’t work well for me when I don’t really know how to arrive at the reality of Forms, in the Thomistic sense, in the first place.
 
Last edited:
No, the phone is an aggregate of substances (like copper, silver, various metals, and probably plastic) and artificial forms (all the various parts). It is an accidental unity unlike a human being or a dog which is a substantial unity. It’s like a house which is an artificial form composed of an accidental unity or aggregate of substances such as wood and stone. Wood and stone are substances but the form of the house is not. Wood and stone exist by themselves as wood and stone whether they form parts of a house or not. Your arm which is a part of your body will not exist as an arm if it is cut off from the body. It will undergo a substantial change and decompose into elemental substances or compound substances such as minerals.
Click to expand...
But how can we decide when something like a human is an actual substantial unity, and not just another case of an “accidental unity”?

Or rather, how can we say so without presupposing God’s existence, or the existence of the spiritual soul, etc?
 
Last edited:
Substantial forms versus accidental forms really has to do with the unity of the object under consideration. Substantial forms, in a sense, exist as a unified whole even though they’re made of parts, with ends intrinsic to what they are, operating together. An atom would have a substantial form. So would a molecule. So would a one-celled organism. So would a rose bush. So would a person. In all of these things, one might say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or at least that they’re operating according to some intrinsic principle. An accidental form, like a chair, or a boat, or even just a rock, is an arrangement of parts in which the relationship between the parts is (well) accidental. Consider a chair, the whole really has no intrinsic order to it. The parts have no relationship to each other beyond what’s been imposed on them by some extrinsic force. It’s arrangement isn’t a strong unity, just an extrinsic imposition on it. The same for a boat or any type of machine, or even a rock. The relationship between parts is really just accidental to each other, just happenstance, not some type of intrinsic unity.
Click to expand...
This is making more sense now that I re-read it.
 
Aren’t essences though, subjective?

What you think to be the defining aspect of a thing, I may disagree…

In relation to your Forms line of reasoning, how would you define something’s form? Ie. what is the form of a phone? (I need to talk about how the phone is arranged, don’t I?)

And what about the forms of identical twins? If they are “identical”, how can knowing whether something is or is not a form be a viable argument for the intelligent personal Mind of God?
 
RealisticCatholic said:
@MPat I’m sorry if I’m not being articulate. I’m not a philosopher by trade. But I do WANT to believe in forms, in the Thomstic sense, not for their own sake — but because they are necessary for certain proofs relating to God’s intelligence (i.e., that he is a Mind and is personal).
Click to expand...
It has little to do with being articulate or a professional philosopher. The point is that I suspect that there is some obstacle like an exaggerated fear of being wrong. While arguments can show it to be unreasonable, they are unlikely to defeat it completely. It is likely that prayer (let’s say, asking for intercession of St. Thomas Aquinas himself) would help a bit more.
RealisticCatholic said:
For example, one thing that makes it shaky for me personally is simply the fact that not everyone accepts the Thomistic matter/form distinction. So it’s not as if it’s perfectly apparent to everyone.
Click to expand...
As it is said, “Fish don’t know they’re in water.”. 🙂

Then there is this same fear to be wrong. And some people also want to deny existence of substances, because they fear that if they won’t, they will reach Existence of God, Natural Law etc.

Thus one should not be surprised that many people deny something like that, even if it is true and rather obvious.
RealisticCatholic said:
I think it’s the realization that all material things are simply in constant shifting. It doesn’t matter if it’s a giraffe, made by nature, or a watch, artificially made by humans — it’s still a bunch of atoms that change over time.
Click to expand...
First, you should notice that this is not an argument as such, instead, it is an alternative position. And unless this alternative position is supported by some arguments, it can be safely rejected.

In fact, it needs pretty strong arguments merely to become a somewhat reasonable alternative, for the Thomistic position is well supported by common sense, and you successfully use it while living your life. Also, for example, it is far more certain that you exist, than that atoms exist.

Now, what actual arguments support this alternative?

Not to mention that even this alternative position does not really manage to avoid substances - it is just that in such case all substances would be atoms (or elementary particles, or fundamental particles), and everything else would be an aggregate. Substances would still have accidents (for example, mass or electrical charge), essences (“specifications”).

For that matter, science itself relies on existence of essences. Scientists make experiments with tiny amounts of molecules and the like, but make conclusions for all of them. They assume that a proton in Sun will act just as a proton in particle accelerator. That makes sense if all protons have a common essence, but that would make no sense if protons are just particles of matter that scientists found to be somewhat similar. The sample would be unrepresentative, no conclusions about the population could be reached.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
And so I don’t know if the better word is essence, or what. But even while I admit there ARE arrangements of matter, I’m having a hard time seeing how this relates to an objective, individual reality that the matter participates in. Or like, if it’s not just a matter of human convention: “This jumble of matter ought to be called a giraffe! And this jumble over here looks enough like it to also be called a giraffe!”
Click to expand...
If one cuts down an oak tree and makes a table, a chair, and a desk out of it, how does one distinguish between the table, chair, and desk? By that which they are made out of, the oak wood or matter as it were? No, they are all made out of oak wood. They are distinguished by the form or shape the wood is fashioned into are they not? That’s why we call the one a table, another a chair, and the third a desk, i.e., by the form (in this case the accidental form of shape) the oak wood takes. In Thomism, matter is not that which determines what a thing is (matter is not an atom or any of the subatomic parts of atoms), matter is rather a principle of indetermination analogous to the oak wood which does not determine the distinction between the table, chair, and desk above. The form is the determining principle of things and through which things are what they are (the substantial form primarily) in the same way that the oak wood in the above example is determined by the form or shape and is called either a table, chair, or desk.

The matter of all things in the created corporeal/physical world is the same considering matter in itself which is entirely formless and essentially pure potentiality. Things are distinguished through the forms which are called ‘the act of matter’ and individualized through the matter.
 
Last edited:
I think you have things a little backwards.

Aristotle simply assumes “forms” are a given and argues from there.
Mainly he is trying to explain:
  1. how change occurs
  2. how things are caused’
  3. how we can put certain things into common classes (universals)
  4. how properties inhere in a unified fashion in a necessary but unseen “substratum”.
Form is but one concept (of a number of related ones) he defines to explain these self-evident things.

I suspect your own purposes really have little to do with any of what Aristotle was on about.
 
Last edited:
Form is but one concept (of a number of related ones) he defines to explain these self-evident things.

I suspect your own purposes really have little to do with any of what Aristotle was on about.
Click to expand...
Well, I’d rather not just assume forms, in the Aristotle-Thomistic sense.

But if they are so evident, then I do need to know what a form is, in the first place. That’s why I started this thread. I’m not a philosophy expert, and I think expertise here is required for my question.

Some people on here are saying it is a highly complex subject, and others are saying it is straightforward. Some people are relating the current subject to every day science (“matter” and “substances”) while others are saying that these terms mean something very different in Aquinas’ thought.

Aristotle may not have argued for forms, but I’d rather not just assume they exist.

If there are two alternatives (or more): that there are objective, independent forms (i.e., in the mind of God) or else just mindless, random jumbles of matter that humans conventionally name as “forms” (e.g., giraffe or wallet), then surely there are reasons to think one option is better than an other.

If there is no argument, as some have said, then why even choose one option over the other? Why not be agnostic about it?
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top