Why should a person prefer hylomorphic dualism to competing positions in the philosophy of mind?

[balto]

Just a quick note, substance is the first category of Aristotle’s 10 catergories of being. Substance is the first category while the remaining nine are accidents. Being itself is not a genus or is it one of the categories, but it is in all the categories. Aquinas says “The word substance signifies not only what exists of itself–for existence cannot of itself be a genus, as shown in the body of the article; but, it also signifies an essence that has the property of existing in this way–namely, of existing of itself; this existence, however, is not its essence. Thus it is clear that God is not in the genus of substance.” (ST, Part I, Q. 3, art. 5). The genus of substance is the first category of being.

Thank you for your clarifications. I was using substance as a synonym for being, hence the cause for the confusion. It’s always nice to have the relevant distinctions made.

 

[balto]

The highlighted sentence states that universals exist objectively in nature, and we then recognize them. I disagree. We see patterns.

Okay, I accept this distinction. But I have a question about the following:

The Problem of Universals is a recognized dispute in metaphysics, and there are all manner of -isms with their own take on the answer. Rather than trying to pick a side, I’d say that we (and all other animals) make the world navigable by recognizing and analyzing patterns, but that a kitten’s analysis that a ball of wool is a substitute mouse doesn’t mean the ball of wool actually contains “mouseness”. We should recognize the pattern that inventing a name for a pattern (universals) doesn’t force the pattern to exist objectively, and recognize the pattern that humans often don’t agree on which patterns exist.

Understood, but I would call what you describe here a “universal” as well, even if it does not exist objectively. I think you are drawing a distinction between universal and pattern, where “pattern” refers to the phenomenon as it occurs subjectively-only within a human mind, whereas “universal” would refer to the phenomenon if it existed in objective nature. If that understanding is correct, then my previous post was asking about whether patterns really are considered by the human mind. I will use the distinction between “universal” and “pattern” from now on if this is indeed how you understand those terms.

If you agree that human minds really deal in patterns, which my reading of your latest post suggests to me that you do agree, then the next question is how the human person can really understand patterns. It seems to me that there are two possibilities:

1. Patterns can be understood via material components of the human person only.
2. Patterns can be understood via material and immaterial components of the human person.

We know from our empirical experiences that material elements are involved since we know that we have bodies. We can draw a logical distinction between the concepts of material and immaterial things at the very least, suggesting that immaterial realities are at least possible if not actual. So 1 and 2 exhaust all logical possibilities given those constraints. Again, I just want to make sure that you agree that framing this question at least prima facie appears to be reasonable.

BTW, I know that it appears that I may be setting you up for some “gotcha” moment, but that is not my intent. I just want to go through every step so the exact point of disagreement can be identified. I suspect it is coming in the next post when 1 or 2 is selected.

Consider even something such as the multiplication of 45*10. A computer will calculate that, even if it has made the same calculation billions of times before. We never calculate it as we don’t have an arithmetic unit between our ears. Instead we might recognize the rule that *10 means put a zero on the right of 45. But even if we get the result by long multiplication, we do it with our remembered five-times table and four-times table. Everything we do is based on patterns. Same applies even to logic, since we don’t have a computer’s logic unit between our ears either.

I think I agree with this, although I disagree that a CPU is the standard and the human mind is attempting to model the CPU. I would say that the human mind is the standard and the CPU attempts to model the mind. But this is good because we seem to agree on the pattern recognition, and I am glad that the discussion has turned to mathematics. “Catness” and other natures seem to be controversial, but it seems to me that most people accept that mathematical knowledge is real knowledge, so it will be good to return to this example after you comment on the above questions.

 

[fisherman_carl]

In my last post I quoted Feser and he made the point that hylomorphism is not a reductionist philosophy like materialism is. I want to examine this further. In Fr. Spitzer’s latest book called, “The Soul’s Upward Yearning: Clues to our Transcendent Nature From Experience and Reason”, he contrasts the reductionist materialism to religious belief.

"Religious believers and mystics assert with certainty that our interior awareness of the absolute, the transcendent, the spiritual, and the sacred comes from a divine source because this interior awareness is of something other, something higher, something not controllable by us. Though we sense this presence within us, we are aware that it is outside of us, and if we allow it, it can sweep us into its energy, mystery, and love.

Secular psychologists and anthropologists contend the opposite. Some think that they have never had an experience of a divine other that incites humility, excitement, fascination, and worship. Others contend that they have such feelings, but are certain that their origin is from their unconscious minds and their free-floating imagination.

It is interesting to note that both groups come to the investigation of religious experience with a considerable number of presuppositions. Religious people not only come with openness to faith, but also with a desire not to reduce spiritual or transcendent data to materialistic or physical categories (they are methodologically nonreductionistic). Alternatively, secular psychologists and anthropologists tend to be closed to the possibility of transcendence and faith and feel the need to be reductionistic in order to be “honestly scientific”.

There is a problem from the outset with attempting to reduce and explain transcendent and transphysical realities in terms of physical and material categories. Transcendent categories, by definition, go beyond the physical, and so we can never be sure whether physical categories are capable of explaining what lies beyond them. Scientific honesty does not require forcing square pegs into round holes. Should scientists ask whether transcendent experience is reducible to physical processes, or should they ask whether transcendent experience cannot be adequately explained by physical processes? Should science be focused on how to make transcendent experience explicable by physical categories, or should it ask if transcendent experience has a dimension of the transphysical in it? Should people’s experience of an absolute spiritual Other be respected as having a quality of genuine otherness? The enterprise of honest scientific inquiry is a matter of interpretation, but we should bear in mind that every reductionistic system falls prey to one of logic’s most fundamental precepts (discussed earlier): that there are far more errors of omission than commission. These errors of omission can come from innocent ignorance or from willful aprioristic assumptions. But whatever the case, they generally produce history’s most egregious intellectual and methodological blunders."

 

[inocente]

That’s interesting that you accept patterns, since a things pattern is another way of describing its form.

From the OED:

Form = the visible shape or configuration of something
Pattern = a regular and intelligible form or sequence

They are not equivalent - an amorphous blob has a form but no discernible pattern (subjectively or objectively).

*"As this indicates, hylemorphism is anything but a “reduction-istic”metaphysical position (that is, one claiming that some seemingly diverse or complex phenomena in reality consist of “nothing but”some more uniform or simpler set of elements). Certainly it is at odds with contemporary materialism; the suggestion that “matter is all that exists”becomes simply incoherent on a hylemorphic conception of matter, since matter by itself without anything else (including any form) would just be non-existent. *

That’s for you guys to debate with materialists, but what Fesser says here is obviously wrong since a string theorist is probably a materialist yet believes that only form exists, that matter itself is nothing but form.

Fesser speaks of hylomorphism as objectively true, while the thread is about philosophy of mind. It’s unclear whether hylomorphism is (a) a claim about objective reality, (b) a claim about how all humans subjectively see the world, (c) both of the above, (d) other. It would be useful if you, Peter, balto and (perhaps) Richa agree on what the claim is.

*Furthermore, while the hylemorphist holds that the substances of our ordinary experience are composites of form and matter, form and matter themselves in turn cannot be understood except in relation to the whole substances of which they are components. Hence the hylemorphic account is holistic and in no sense a “reduction”of substances even to their form and matter together. *

Fesser really ought to employ an editor to avoid such howlers. He reduces everything to form and matter and then immediately claims he’s not a reductionist as he used the apparently magical word “composite”.

*This also indicates that Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s conception of “form”is not the same as Plato’s. On the hylemorphic analysis, considered apart from the substances that have them, form and matter are mere abstractions; there is no form of the ball apart from the matter that has that form, and no matter of the ball apart from the form that makes it a ball specifically. In particular, the form of a ball does not exist in a “Platonic heaven”of abstract objects outside time and space. All the same, Aris totle and Aquinas are, like Plato, realists about universals: when we grasp “humanity,”“triangularity,”and the like, what we grasp are not mere inventions of the human mind, but are grounded in the natures of real human beings, triangles, or what have you. (More on this later.) Moreover, while (contra Plato) no form exists apart from some particular individual substance that instantiates it, not every form exists in a material substance. There can be forms without matter, and thus immaterial substances –namely, for Aquinas, angels and postmortem human souls. (Again, more on this later.) This recapitulates an asymmetry noted earlier: just as act can exist without potency even though potency cannot exist without act, so too form can exist without matter even though matter cannot exist without form (DEE 4)." (Edward Feser, ‘Aquinas’) *

Seems Aristotle would disagree with Fesser:

*"[Aristotle] does seem to take the view that the activity of the human intellect always involves some activity of the perceptual apparatus, and hence requires the presence, and proper arrangement, of suitable bodily parts and organs; for he seems to think that sensory impressions [phantasmata] are somehow involved in every occurrent act of thought, at least as far as human beings are concerned (De Anima 3.7, 431a14-7; 3.8, 432a7-10; cf. De Memoria 1, 449b31ff.). If so, Aristotle in fact seems to be committed to the view that, contrary to the Platonic position, even human souls are not capable of existence and (perhaps as importantly) activity apart from the body (cf. De Anima 1.1, 403a3-25, esp. 5-16)." - plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#4 *

 

[inocente]

Understood, but I would call what you describe here a “universal” as well, even if it does not exist objectively. I think you are drawing a distinction between universal and pattern, where “pattern” refers to the phenomenon as it occurs subjectively-only within a human mind, whereas “universal” would refer to the phenomenon if it existed in objective nature. If that understanding is correct, then my previous post was asking about whether patterns really are considered by the human mind. I will use the distinction between “universal” and “pattern” from now on if this is indeed how you understand those terms.

As I understand it, the architecture of the brain is fundamentally about patterns, so we can’t help but see the world in those terms. I’m not sure about your proposed distinction. Is E=mc[sup]2[/sup] a universal? Better yet, is the equation of a circle a universal? You might say yes on the basis that all circles must obey the equation. Or you might say no on the basis that we only recognize a shape to be a circle if it first obeys the equation, so the claim is (wait for it) circular. Which in turn begs the question of whether the world really is divided up into such schemes as universals, or whether we just see it that way.

I take it that acceptance of some manner of universals is important to your story, so for the moment let’s just agree to be wary of the notion.

If you agree that human minds really deal in patterns, which my reading of your latest post suggests to me that you do agree, then the next question is how the human person can really understand patterns. It seems to me that there are two possibilities:

1. Patterns can be understood via material components of the human person only.
2. Patterns can be understood via material and immaterial components of the human person.

We know from our empirical experiences that material elements are involved since we know that we have bodies. We can draw a logical distinction between the concepts of material and immaterial things at the very least, suggesting that immaterial realities are at least possible if not actual. So 1 and 2 exhaust all logical possibilities given those constraints. Again, I just want to make sure that you agree that framing this question at least prima facie appears to be reasonable.

Two bijou problemettes. The first is the assumption of dualism without being clear on what is meant by material and immaterial. Is the equation of a circle immaterial? Is a pattern immaterial? If the theory of neuronal circuits is correct then all circuits are the same, they each do one small task, the only difference is in the parameters each circuit learns. This implies a very different way of seeing mental activity. Not to put too fine a point on it, one circuit recognizes the bar of a “t”, another much higher up the chain recognizes that Christ is Lord.

This in turn implies that what we mean by “understanding” something is simply about this web of circuits being able to resolve it into a coherent pattern.

BTW, I know that it appears that I may be setting you up for some “gotcha” moment, but that is not my intent. I just want to go through every step so the exact point of disagreement can be identified. I suspect it is coming in the next post when 1 or 2 is selected.

No, that’s fine, I likewise want to go slowly to spot all the differences.

I think I agree with this, although I disagree that a CPU is the standard and the human mind is attempting to model the CPU. I would say that the human mind is the standard and the CPU attempts to model the mind. But this is good because we seem to agree on the pattern recognition, and I am glad that the discussion has turned to mathematics. “Catness” and other natures seem to be controversial, but it seems to me that most people accept that mathematical knowledge is real knowledge, so it will be good to return to this example after you comment on the above questions.

I wouldn’t say a CPU is a standard either, it’s just a tool that’s much faster and more accurate than us at tasks such as arithmetic.

Watched this last night, from your comments you may enjoy it. MIT’s youngest ever professor talking about the relationship between math and art (the intro is about 2:15 if you want to skip it). Professor of algorithms with a work in MoMA.
youtube.com/watch?v=WlO80TOMK7Y

 

[utunumsint]

The Problem of Universals is a recognized dispute in metaphysics, and there are all manner of -isms with their own take on the answer. Rather than trying to pick a side, I’d say that we (and all other animals) make the world navigable by recognizing and analyzing patterns, but that a kitten’s analysis that a ball of wool is a substitute mouse doesn’t mean the ball of wool actually contains “mouseness”. We should recognize the pattern that inventing a name for a pattern (universals) doesn’t force the pattern to exist objectively, and recognize the pattern that humans often don’t agree on which patterns exist.

I would say this is definitely picking a side. And by doing this, you appear to think you are not doing metaphysics… can you explain why you think this is the case?

God bless,
Ut

 

[Wesrock]

Fesser really ought to employ an editor to avoid such howlers. He reduces everything to form and matter and then immediately claims he’s not a reductionist as he used the apparently magical word “composite”.

Reductionism is continuously breaking something down into its smallest parts. “I am a collection of atoms that goes by the name Wesrock.” The atoms can be separated for individual study, each atom can be looked at indidually apart from everything else. Form and matter can’t be looked at independently of each other (considering material beings). They are co-principles, but I can’t naturally look at form apart from matter or matter apart from form. You can’t naturally reduce an object down to just its form or just its matter. I can’t naturally put the form over here and the matter over there, nor do they exist independently of each other. Matter and form are not things in and of themselves, but are co-principles, one not reducible to the other, that define a being/artifact. It’s not reductionism, and Feser said nothing contradictory in what you quoted.

Also, I can’t find where you posted it (the trouble of posting from my phone), but a ball of yarn does not have “mousiness.” That’s a misunderstanding of the argument.

 

[Peter_Plato]

That’s for you guys to debate with materialists, but what Fesser says here is obviously wrong since a string theorist is probably a materialist yet believes that only form exists, that matter itself is nothing but form.

It is interesting how you use words like “probably” to conclude “obviously wrong.”

Are you claiming that Feser or the string theorist believes “…that only form exists, that matter itself is nothing but form?” Your sentence isn’t very clear on that.

I think Feser’s problem isn’t so much that he has the problem, but that his critics don’t bother to read much of what he says and then think they have sufficient knowledge to launch a critique. And I might add that his defenders frequently lack sufficient knowledge to sustain a credible defense precisely because his work is quite brilliant – much like Aquinas and Aristotle were. Which is why they all should be read much more carefully and completely.

Fesser speaks of hylomorphism as objectively true, while the thread is about philosophy of mind. It’s unclear whether hylomorphism is (a) a claim about objective reality, (b) a claim about how all humans subjectively see the world, (c) both of the above, (d) other. It would be useful if you, Peter, balto and (perhaps) Richa agree on what the claim is.

Have you read any of Feser’s books, inocente? If not, and yet you still insist that you have the ability and credibility to carry out such “meaningful” attacks on him, it is clear who is doing the “howling” here.

And whether we agree or not on what Feser says simply means that what he says isn’t a simple matter to be fully comprehended from, or depicted in, a paragraph or two. Nor that what he says can be dismissed as tritely as you suppose.

Fesser really ought to employ an editor to avoid such howlers. He reduces everything to form and matter and then immediately claims he’s not a reductionist as he used the apparently magical word “composite”.

Feser ought to employ muscle-bound henchmen to “coerce” those who begin reading his work to continue reading it until they get the complete picture – rather than some mistaken cursory “understanding” of it – before they go about critiquing it. Mostly to disabuse his critics of the notion that they do, in fact, “understand” what he is saying when they don’t have a clue.

Seems Aristotle would disagree with Fesser:

"[Aristotle] does seem to take the view that the activity of the human intellect always involves some activity of the perceptual apparatus, and hence requires the presence, and proper arrangement, of suitable bodily parts and organs; for he seems to think that sensory impressions [phantasmata] are somehow involved in every occurrent act of thought, at least as far as human beings are concerned (De Anima 3.7, 431a14-7; 3.8, 432a7-10; cf. De Memoria 1, 449b31ff.). If so, Aristotle in fact seems to be committed to the view that, contrary to the Platonic position, even human souls are not capable of existence and (perhaps as importantly) activity apart from the body (cf. De Anima 1.1, 403a3-25, esp. 5-16)." - plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#4

Yes, seems is the keyword (along with “perhaps,”) meaning that you are still far from demonstrating anything whatsoever.

Not that it was ever clear what it was that you were trying to demonstrate in the first place – other than a kind of low-level, noise-ridden skepticism with regard to everything you happen not to understand or agree with.

 

[utunumsint]

I just wanted to go back to an earlier statement you made here:

The first problemette being that the categorization into form and matter isn’t used in science and serves no role in any theories. There’s no requirement for it to be presupposed.

Well, perhaps the matter part is up for debate, but not the form part. More to follow.

A more major problemette is that the world is what it is, however we think of it. If you find the world is more intelligible when you make a distinction between form and matter then fine, but the world isn’t then forced to consist of form and matter as a result.

So I think you are using a circular argument here: the world must be how you think it is otherwise the world wouldn’t be how you think it is.

But a fan of string theory could also make your argument that “there is no firm evidence that there are formless beings or entities out there”. But she has the advantage on you, since she’s simplified your form+matter into form alone. Does that make her theory more intelligible than yours? (In other words, science would come to a stop if it had to answer such navel-gazing questions .)

The common factor in both hylomorphic dualism and this string theory of form only is form.

You also said more recently in response to Balto the following, which I agree with:

As I understand it, the architecture of the brain is fundamentally about patterns, so we can’t help but see the world in those terms.

Now, I would agree with fisherman carl that it is “…interesting that you accept patterns, since a things pattern is another way of describing its form.” and I find your response to him frustrating, using the OED definitions, as though they are the only ways of using the words Form and Pattern.

From the OED:

Form = the visible shape or configuration of something
Pattern = a regular and intelligible form or sequence

They are not equivalent - an amorphous blob has a form but no discernible pattern (subjectively or objectively).

This is simply an obstinate refusal to even try to understand what carl was trying to say. Just look at the Mirriam Webster definitions. **There are 10 of them!!! **And you dogmatically declare that only the first is valid. And even if we just stick to your definition of pattern, the definition itself uses the words intelligible form to describe what a pattern is. In other words, a pattern is simply an intelligible form, which completely proves the point that Carl was making!

I find it frustrating when I see comments like this coming from you. I truly want to understand where you are coming from, but you seem to be unwilling to do the same for others here!

And to go back to my original point, if there are things that exist in the universe that have no form and no pattern, then they are unintelligible to us. I would submit that to accept such a view of the universe is to accept that the universe is fundamentally irrational. And not only would this overturn a belief in God’s Justice and Goodness, but it would also make knowledge and science contingent things, subject to change as well. If anything, science has shown the exact opposite of what you are claiming. The patterns and forms we see in science are ever more and more fundamental.

You said the following:

So I think you are using a circular argument here: the world must be how you think it is otherwise the world wouldn’t be how you think it is.

If there are formless entities out there in the universe, then not only is the world not the way I think it is, then it is also unintelligible, period. Because we don’t have the requisite faculties to understand the world. I think this is the logical implications of your theory that there is a world where there exists things that are formless and unintelligible.

You may be right. But I sincerely hope that you are not.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Peter_Plato]

If there are formless entities out there in the universe, then not only is the world not the way I think it is, then it is also unintelligible, period. Because we don’t have the requisite faculties to understand the world. I think this is the logical implications of your theory that there is a world where there exists things that are formless and unintelligible.

You may be right. But I sincerely hope that you are not.

God bless,
Ut

Even more so, if he is right there is no way of knowing that he is right precisely because apprehending, in any intelligent way at all, what is formless and inintelligible would be impossible.

I suspect this arises from the need to defend an unwavering (and malformed) subjectivist-fideist view of the world, which still begs the question of how revealed truths or faith would be recognized as such, especially on a subjective/personal level, in the first place.

 

[balto]

As I understand it, the architecture of the brain is fundamentally about patterns, so we can’t help but see the world in those terms. I’m not sure about your proposed distinction. Is E=mc[sup]2[/sup] a universal? Better yet, is the equation of a circle a universal? You might say yes on the basis that all circles must obey the equation. Or you might say no on the basis that we only recognize a shape to be a circle if it first obeys the equation, so the claim is (wait for it) circular.

This is actually a direction that I wanted to move in shortly. Eventually I was going to argue that it is not really the equation that we know, as the equation only represents the pattern itself, but I think this position might become clearer once I clarify some terms that you were asking about below.

Which in turn begs the question of whether the world really is divided up into such schemes as universals, or whether we just see it that way.

I think all we need to agree on is that “we see it that way”, which we seem to agree upon. It seems more natural to me anyway to accept that we see universals mentally before we ask whether they exist objectively. So it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this argument about the mind if we disagree about the objective status of universals or patterns. I will treat their objective status skeptically and not assume that they exist but I will assume that we really do think in terms of patterns.

Two bijou problemettes. The first is the assumption of dualism without being clear on what is meant by material and immaterial. Is the equation of a circle immaterial? Is a pattern immaterial? If the theory of neuronal circuits is correct then all circuits are the same, they each do one small task, the only difference is in the parameters each circuit learns. This implies a very different way of seeing mental activity. Not to put too fine a point on it, one circuit recognizes the bar of a “t”, another much higher up the chain recognizes that Christ is Lord.

I think you are right to bring this up, I should have defined these terms. By “material” I mean ultimately explicable without remainder in terms of the laws of physics, whereas an “immaterial” thing would not be explicable in terms of the laws of physics alone. Your proposed system of neurological circuitry would fit my understanding of material, so nothing you’ve said indicates to me that you are including some reference to an immaterial faculty. Maybe you wouldn’t word it that way so the following may clear up my position:

Going back to the above:

1. Patterns can be understood via material components of the human person only.
2. Patterns can be understood via material and immaterial components of the human person.

With both 1 and 2, given a person’s thought content, you should be able to determine the neurological state. That is true for both 1 and 2. However, if instead you are given the neurological state and a complete understanding of human neurology, with 1 you should be able to determinately identify the person’s thought content (where the thought content is a pattern of some sort), whereas with 2 you would not be able to determine the thought with certainty, even if you knew everything about human neurology. Assuming 2, you should only be able to, at best, give an educated guess about what the thought content is. So we may say that 1 assumes that neurology is determinate and 2 assumes that neurology is indeterminate as regards specific thought content. Does that clear things up? If so, in the next post I would like to explore whether we can decide if a pattern really can be identified with a neurological state.

Watched this last night, from your comments you may enjoy it. MIT’s youngest ever professor talking about the relationship between math and art (the intro is about 2:15 if you want to skip it). Professor of algorithms with a work in MoMA.
youtube.com/watch?v=WlO80TOMK7Y

Thank you, I will check this out later in the week so I can understand more clearly what current thinking on the matter is.

 

[inocente]

I would say this is definitely picking a side. And by doing this, you appear to think you are not doing metaphysics… can you explain why you think this is the case?

Thanks for the kind offer but I’m still not joining any -ism .

This is simply an obstinate refusal to even try to understand what carl was trying to say. Just look at the Mirriam Webster definitions. **There are 10 of them!!! **And you dogmatically declare that only the first is valid. And even if we just stick to your definition of pattern, the definition itself uses the words intelligible form to describe what a pattern is. In other words, a pattern is simply an intelligible form, which completely proves the point that Carl was making!

I find it frustrating when I see comments like this coming from you. I truly want to understand where you are coming from, but you seem to be unwilling to do the same for others here!

A pockmarked asteroid has a form, but contains no pattern.

A mosque can be decorated with abstract patterns but not with the forms of people or animals.

It’s not obstinacy to know that pattern and form are different, ask any artist. Well, ask anyone. Except, apparently, hylomorphists, who need to make out that the words are synonyms, for reasons I’m hoping someone will explain.

*And to go back to my original point, if there are things that exist in the universe that have no form and no pattern, then they are unintelligible to us. I would submit that to accept such a view of the universe is to accept that the universe is fundamentally irrational. And not only would this overturn a belief in God’s Justice and Goodness, but it would also make knowledge and science contingent things, subject to change as well. If anything, science has shown the exact opposite of what you are claiming. The patterns and forms we see in science are ever more and more fundamental. *

There does seem to be an assumption right at the heart of hylomorphism that the world must bend to the hylomorphist view, but we cannot force God to make the world intelligible to us. It is what it is, it’s how God made it, whether we understand it or not.

*If there are formless entities out there in the universe, then not only is the world not the way I think it is, then it is also unintelligible, period. Because we don’t have the requisite faculties to understand the world. I think this is the logical implications of your theory that there is a world where there exists things that are formless and unintelligible. *

Here again, apparently, is that hylomorphist assumption, but just because we cannot discern any form does not mean God cannot discern a form, does not mean an absence of form.

 

[Peter_Plato]

A pockmarked asteroid has a form, but contains no pattern.

An observation which was subsequently refuted by…

Here again, apparently, is that hylomorphist [or inocente] assumption, but just because we cannot discern any form [or pattern] does not mean God cannot discern a form [or pattern], does not mean an absence of form [or pattern.]

Ergo, “no pattern” is refuted by the same argument you have selectively used to refute “no form.”

Apparently, you have not just joined any -ism – you have been quite “selective” in joining “selectiv-ism” – the cult that selectively applies arguments as it arbitrarily chooses.

 

[inocente]

Reductionism is continuously breaking something down into its smallest parts. “I am a collection of atoms that goes by the name Wesrock.” The atoms can be separated for individual study, each atom can be looked at indidually apart from everything else. Form and matter can’t be looked at independently of each other (considering material beings). They are co-principles, but I can’t naturally look at form apart from matter or matter apart from form. You can’t naturally reduce an object down to just its form or just its matter. I can’t naturally put the form over here and the matter over there, nor do they exist independently of each other. Matter and form are not things in and of themselves, but are co-principles, one not reducible to the other, that define a being/artifact. It’s not reductionism, and Feser said nothing contradictory in what you quoted.

Another way of saying that is that atoms can be separated objectively but form and matter can only be separated subjectively.

Perhaps you got your wrong definition from Fesser, but methodological reductionism isn’t about breaking things down, it’s about explaining something by its components. No philosopher or scientist would try to explain Wesrock as a mere bag of atoms. If Fesser claims anyone would, he must be desperate.

Most of the world doesn’t subscribe to hylomorphism (or is even aware of it), and there are lots of other -isms such as emergentism and holism as well as reductionism.

Also, I can’t find where you posted it (the trouble of posting from my phone), but a ball of yarn does not have “mousiness.” That’s a misunderstanding of the argument.

Yes, it’s already been said that hylomorphism’s claims are so subtle that they can only be understood by those few cognoscenti who can think at a sufficiently high level . But nope, mousiness is as mousiness does.

 

[inocente]

…]

…]

Sorry, ran out of time again . Will response tomorrow, honest guv.

 

[Peter_Plato]

But nope, mousiness is as mousiness does.

Now, inocente, why do you think you will be taken seriously in your arguments against hylomorphism when you invoke a form (mousiness) to argue against forms?

Yes, it’s already been said that hylomorphism’s claims are so subtle that they can only be understood by those few cognoscenti who can think at a sufficiently high level.

Understood by a few, but practiced by all – including you.

Very “subtle” of you, I might add.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Sorry, ran out of time again . Will response tomorrow, honest guv.

No doubt. You are, if nothing else, the Eveready Energizer Bunny of CAF.

 

[utunumsint]

Thanks for the kind offer but I’m still not joining any -ism .

It doesn’t mean you aren’t part of one regardless.

A pockmarked asteroid has a form, but contains no pattern.

A mosque can be decorated with abstract patterns but not with the forms of people or animals.

It’s not obstinacy to know that pattern and form are different, ask any artist. Well, ask anyone. Except, apparently, hylomorphists, who need to make out that the words are synonyms, for reasons I’m hoping someone will explain.

It is obstinacy when you spin out comments like this and think you have scored a point when all you have done is shoved your head in the sand and misrepresented what I’m sure by now you ought to know already.

The form and matter distinction has to do with substances. Substances have form. These forms characterize the substance. The universe is made from bottom to top of substances that have forms. From bosons and fermions to human beings and elephants. Forms are a pattern that characterize the substance. The absence of pattern you describe in an asteroid is because it is an amalgamation of different substances. But you would not even have the possibility of an absence of pattern without those substances to arrange in such a disorganized way.

Now, science is in the business of discovering these forms. Every time they make a new discovery about something, they get to know more about its form and how the substances behave. They also discover things about how substances interact with one another, sometimes in orderly, sometimes in disorderly ways. These substances sometimes change. They can be transformed from one substance to another. But with substances, there is always either an accidental change where the substance remains or a substantial change, where the substance changes from one type to another. This change typically means the exchange of one form for another form.

The only possible exception to this might be a black hole where everything that makes up matter is potentially lost forever. But even there, the black hole itself is not nothing. It also has a form, even though we can only really understand its outer edges.

There does seem to be an assumption right at the heart of hylomorphism that the world must bend to the hylomorphist view, but we cannot force God to make the world intelligible to us. It is what it is, it’s how God made it, whether we understand it or not.

Here again, apparently, is that hylomorphist assumption, but just because we cannot discern any form does not mean God cannot discern a form, does not mean an absence of form.

Agreed. The history of science is a history of the discovery of the true nature of the physical universe as we uncover with greater and greater precision the true nature of substances that exist in nature. We will never know every form that God has created or can create. But we can know that God has created all substance with a certain form. They may be unintelligible to us, and may never be intelligible to us, but we know that God knows their form.

God bless,
Ut

 

[fisherman_carl]

Going back to the contrast between materialistic reductionism and hylemorphism is I think a key point to answering the OP’s question. I think we need to explore the following questions further, which I don’t have time to do right now.

What are the potential dangers of reductionism? ie the idea that all we are is only a buck 75 worth of chemicals.

Why is hylemorphism not reductionist? ie it isn’t we are just a bag of atoms. Or even just form and matter. Form and matter seem just as impersonal as a bag of chemicals. But Feser says hylemorphism isn’t reducing everything down to just form and matter.

 

[balto]

Going back to the contrast between materialistic reductionism and hylemorphism is I think a key point to answering the OP’s question. I think we need to explore the following questions further, which I don’t have time to do right now.

What are the potential dangers of reductionism? ie the idea that all we are is only a buck 75 worth of chemicals.

Why is hylemorphism not reductionist? ie it isn’t we are just a bag of atoms. Or even just form and matter. Form and matter seem just as impersonal as a bag of chemicals. But Feser says hylemorphism isn’t reducing everything down to just form and matter.

I think the key to understanding why form/matter is not reductionist is realizing that form and matter do not denote separate things. This is what I was trying to allude to earlier on. It is not the case that there are these things called “forms” and this stuff called “matter” and when the two come together you have a perceivable thing. Form and matter are aspect of “thingness” itself.

For instance, by saying that a plant has a “vegetative soul” (i.e. it has the form of life), you are saying that it is fundamentally a different type of thing than non-living things. It therefore does not reduce to non-living things. The form specifies that it is part of a different class of things and therefore prevents reduction. Non-living things (i.e. the molecules) certainly enter into the plant’s nature, since that is the matter, the material cause of the plant. These material causes are not life itself, but the means by which life exists.

This is difficult to keep in mind at first, because the human intellect makes use of phantasms produced by the brain and imagination in order to do its reasoning. Whenever the imagination is given precedence, it will inevitably imagine two different things when thinking of form and matter, since whatever the imagination produces is by necessity a complete thing. So if you imagine form and matter, you have two separate things. The intellect has to continually be given precedence so that you keep in mind that form and matter are not things but aspects of thingness. Eventually this starts to happen more naturally on its own without having to consciously correct the imagination.