What are "forms" in Aquinas's thought?

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fakename

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what does the word “form” mean in Aristotle-Aquinas thinking?

It seems to be related but not the same as Platonic forms.

Both are at least sometimes in act, immaterial, immutable, and infinite but Aquinas does seem to imply that some forms are mutable like animal souls that don’t survive the death of the body.

At the same time Aquinas seems to be convinced that platonism at least sometimes describes reality when he writes about how things participate in good or being.

So what does “form” really mean?
 
The arrangement of matter. Pretty much the same thing we mean by it.
 
GEddie said:
Are you sure about that? When the human soul is said to be the “form of the body”, I doubt that it’s believed to have a human shape.
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Yes, I suppose a better example would have been, “the organizing principle behind an arrangement of matter,” as far as substantial form. There are a few subcategories of form; accidental, etc., applying to non physical entities, so, in general, form is an organizing principle behind a coherent structure.
 
user "prodigalson2011":
Yes, I suppose a better example would have been, “the organizing principle behind an arrangement of matter,” as far as substantial form. There are a few subcategories of form; accidental, etc., applying to non physical entities, so, in general, form is an organizing principle behind a coherent structure.
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but how does this concept apply to angels and God who are both extremely formal beings w/o having matter or being subject to an organizing principle?

Also, why is this concept expressed in such a way to make forms seem like separate complete or incomplete substances, like when Aquinas would say that matter is “informed” as if a form that subsists external to matter literally goes into matter and thereby “informs” it?
 
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