Hylomorphism

[Marcos_2]

Hi, I’ve been studying the Hylomorphism and I have some doubts that I couldn’t solve on my books. So I hope someone here can make it clear.

The Philosophical Mechanicism can’t explain the nature of corporeal beings. They just recognize there are laws and relations but it doesn’t explain why one body is different of another body. It doesn’t explain the reason, the specific difference.

So the Hylomorphism would affirm that there are 2 intrinsic principles that compose the corporeal being: matter and form, which are complementary.

What I can’t understand is it is said matter and form are principles of being and not exactly beings. These principles together would give existence to the corporeal being. But the problem is: if being denotes anything that exists or can exist, how a principle of being isn’t a being if it exists?

I thank you for the answers.

 

[Katholish]

What I can’t understand is it is said matter and form are principles of being and not exactly beings.

These principles together would give existence to the corporeal being. But the problem is: if being denotes anything that exists or can exist, how a principle of being isn’t a being if it exists?

It is true that form and matter are principles of being, but it is only partially true that they are not beings themselves.

I would love to be able to tell you that it is as simple as saying that neither form or matter could exist on their own, and since they are not independent, that is why they are not a kind of being. Unfortunately, it is a little more complicated than that, since accidents like color also cannot exist on their own, yet are kinds of being. “Greenness” cannot exist on its own, but must inhere in some substance, hence you have a “green thing” but not “greenness itself” independently existing.

Form is even more essential to being than even substance is. Existence can exist in the absense of substance, but not in the absense of form.

The issue is further complicated because not all things need matter in order to exist. There are, afterall, immaterial substances. Hence, forms can exist without matter. This is why I said the original statement was only partially true. Forms can exist either substantially or accidentally. In the latter case they share their act of existence with the substance they form, but substantial forms exist on their own and can be said to be existing things. God, the angels, and the human soul are all examples of substantial forms.

So why is an accidental form not a kind of being? While it is true that it cannot exist on its own, how does that make it different from an accident like “greenness” that is a kind of being? The fact is that form is so intrinsic to a things being, that is the concepts of form and being are practically indistinguishable in some respects. It is sort of like asking :if being is necessary for a thing to be considered ‘a being’ then why isn’t being itself its own kind of being?" Every kind of being that there is is a kind of form just as it is a kind of being, but the notion of form is richer insofar as it isn’t “just being” but implies “a kind of being”. Form is what differentiates being, so in some sense you could define form as “that which makes a being be the kind of being that it is”.

I totally realize that all of this might sound confusing, and I don’t mean to complicate the matter for you any more than it is, but I think that the notion of the intrinsic relation/identity between form and being will be the best thing to clear up the matter of your original question.

 

[Marcos_2]

Okay, thanks for the answer. It seems you understand pretty well the matter.

I still have my doubts. But I think I should study first the topic substance/accident before the matter and form in hylomorphism.

At afternoon, I’ll study it. Any doubts, I write again here. Thank you very much.

 

[Katholish]

It took me several years with some of the best Thomistic philosophy professors in the U.S. to gain a working understanding of some of these concepts. Don’t be disappointed if it isn’t all perfectly clear after a couple weeks of study.

Your question about “being” isn’t just a question about hylomorphism, but hylomorphism’s relation to the rest of Aristotle’s metaphysics, which is a very deep topic. It is difficult to understand one part of Aristotle without knowing a little bit of each of his main points of emphasis.

 

[Marcos_2]

Hello again.

I’ve been reading more and the point is that I can’t understand why matter and form are “principles of being” while we can’t regard them as “beings”.

I think the problem begins with the notion of potentiality. So let’s begin quickly since the beginning of Metaphysics.

By being we denote everything that exists or can exist. Everything we know is a being, else if it’s not a being, we wouldn’t know, because “being” is the object of the intelligence. Is it correct until here?

Then we have the mutation or movement. Let’s get a body that changes, like the paper becomes ash, or the white paper that becomes red paper. The white paper is white in act and is red in potency. The white paper has the possibility of becoming red but has no possibility of becoming God, for instance.

So, it is said that the act and the potency aren’t properly beings, but principles of being. Except the cases like God is pure act, the Being, or the human soul that could exist without the body, it is said that we don’t understand the act and the potency as independent beings, but they only exist when they’re together forming the compound body.

The problem is: principle is what something proceeds of. They say there are extrinsic and intrinsic principles. The extrinsic principle would be the sculptor making the sculpture, and that’s easy to understand. The intrinsic principle, I don’t understand very well.

So, if the act and the potency are (intrinsic) principles that in union give existence to the corporeal being, they must be beings because they’re principles and the principles must exist. So the problem goes to, as I said, the potentiality, which is said to be not a being nor a non being. It isn’t a being because what exists is act. It isn’t also a non being because things don’t exist from the nothing, the effects have a cause. So what is exactly the potentiality? Whatever it is, it must be defined in function of the act, which is existent. It might be a capacity for a perfection, but in this case it would have the actuality of being a capacity. It’s too confusing.

I think once this potentiality is understood correctly, the hylomorphism will get easier to understand.

And another problem is the simple body. It presents active/qualitative and passive/quantitative aspects, so the hylomorphism explains it by the 2 complementary principles of being: form and matter, in this order. But what’s the meaning of “the body is constituted in its nature substantially one, but formally complex.”? Would it be in practice only one, but in theory two? It wouldn’t convince me.

See you.