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Hylomorphism is a Philosophy doctrine developed by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, which conceives every physical entity or being ( ousia) as a compound of matter (potency) and Substantial form (act), with the generic form as Moderate realism within the individual. The word is a 19th-century term formed from the Greek words ὕλη ( hyle: "wood, matter") and μορφή ( morphē: "form"). Hylomorphic theories of physical entities have been undergoing a revival in contemporary philosophy.
The Latin equivalent of the hyle concept – and later its medieval version – also emerged from Aristotle's notion. The Greek term's Latin equivalent was silva, which literally meant woodland or forest. However, Latin thinkers opted for a word that had a technical sense (rather than literal meaning). This emphasized silva as that of which a thing is made, but one that remained a substratum with changed form. The word materia was chosen instead to indicate a meaning not in handicraft but in the passive role that mother ( mater) plays in conception.
Aristotle's concept of hyle is the principle that correlates with shape and this can be demonstrated in the way the philosopher described hyle, saying it is that which receives form or definiteness, that which is formed. It can also be the material cause underlying a change in Aristotelianism philosophy. Aristotle explained that "By hyle I mean that which in itself is neither a particular thing nor of a certain quantity nor assigned to any other of the categories by which being is determined." This means that hyle is brought into existence not due to its being its agent or its own actuality but only when form attaches to it. It has been described as a plenum or a field, a conceptualization that opposed Democritus' atomistic ontology. It is maintained that the Aristotelian concept should not be understood as a "stuff" since there is, for example, hyle that is intellectual as well as sensible hyle found in the body.
For Aristotle, hyle is composed of four elements – fire, water, air, and earth – but these were not considered pure substances since matter and form exist in a combination of hot, moist, dry, and cold so that everything is united to form the elements.
Aristotle defines matter as "that out of which" something is made. Physics 194b23-24 For example, letters are the matter of syllables. Physics 195a16 Thus, "matter" is a relative term: Physics 194b9 an object counts as matter relative to something else. For example, clay is matter relative to a brick because a brick is made of clay, whereas bricks are matter relative to a brick house. Change is analyzed as a material transformation: matter is what undergoes a change of form.Robinson 18-19 For example, consider a lump of bronze that's shaped into a statue. Bronze is the matter, and this matter loses one form ( morphe) (that of a lump) and gains a new form (that of a statue). Physics 195a6-8 Metaphysics 1045a26-29 According to Aristotle's theory of perception, we perceive an object by receiving its form ( eidos) with our sense organs. On the Soul 424a19 Thus, forms include complex qualia such as colors, textures, and flavors, not just shapes. On the Soul 418a11–12
Hence, Aristotle argues, there is no problem in explaining the unity of body and soul, just as there is no problem in explaining the unity of wax and its shape.412b5-6 Just as a wax object consists of wax with a certain shape, so a living organism consists of a body with the property of life, which is its soul. On the basis of his hylomorphic theory, Aristotle rejects the Pythagoreanism doctrine of metempsychosis, ridiculing the notion that just any soul could inhabit just any body. On the Soul 407b20-24, 414a22-24
According to Timothy Robinson, it is unclear whether Aristotle identifies the soul with the body's structure.Robinson 45-47 According to one interpretation of Aristotle, a properly organized body is already alive simply by virtue of its structure.Robinson 46 However, according to another interpretation, the property of life—that is, the soul—is something in addition to the body's structure. Robinson uses the analogy of a car to explain this second interpretation. A running car is running not only because of its structure but also because of the activity in its engine. Likewise, according to this second interpretation, a living body is alive not only because of its structure but also because of an additional property: the soul, which a properly organized body needs in order to be alive.Robinson 47 John Vella uses Frankenstein's monster to illustrate the second interpretation:Vella 92 the corpse lying on Frankenstein's table is already a fully organized human body, but it is not yet alive; when Frankenstein activates his machine, the corpse gains a new property, the property of life, which Aristotle would call the soul.
One approach to resolving this problemShields, Aristotle 293 relies on the fact that a living body is constantly replacing old matter with new. A five-year-old body consists of different matter than does the same person's seventy-year-old body. If the five-year-old body and the seventy-year-old body consist of different matter, then what makes them the same body? The answer is presumably the soul. Because the five-year-old and the seventy-year-old bodies share a soul—that is, the person's life—we can identify them both as the body. Apart from the soul, we cannot identify what collection of matter is the body. Therefore, a person's body is no longer that person's body after it dies.
Another approach to resolving the problemShields, "A Fundamental Problem" relies on a distinction between "proximate" and "non-proximate" matter. When Aristotle says that the body is matter for a living thing, he may be using the word "body" to refer to the matter that makes up the fully organized body, rather than the fully organized body itself. Unlike the fully organized body, this "body" remains the same thing even after death. In contrast, when he says that the body is no longer the same after its death, he is using the word "body" to refer to the fully organized body.
According to one interpretation, a person's ability to think (unlike his other psychological abilities) belongs to some incorporeal organ distinct from his body.Caston, "Aristotle's Psychology" 337 This would amount to a form of dualism.Caston, "Aristotle's Psychology" 337 However, according to some scholars, it would not be a full-fledged Cartesian dualism.Shields, "Some Recent Approaches" 165 This interpretation creates what Robert Pasnau has called the "mind-soul problem" within Aristotelian hylomorphism: if the intellect belongs to an entity distinct from the body, and the soul is the form of the body, then how is the intellect part of the soul?Pasnau 160
Another interpretation rests on the distinction between the passive intellect and the agent intellect. According to this interpretation, the passive intellect is a property of the body, while the agent intellect is a substance distinct from the body.McEvilley 534Vella 110 Some proponents of this interpretation think that each person has his own agent intellect, which presumably separates from the body at death.Caston, "Aristotle's Two Intellects" 207Vella 110 Others interpret the agent intellect as a single divine being, perhaps the unmoved mover, Aristotle's God.Caston, "Aristotle's Psychology" 339Caston, "Aristotle's Two Intellects" 199
A third interpretationShields, "Soul as Subject" relies on the theory that an individual form is capable of having properties of its own.Shields, "Soul as Subject" 142 According to this interpretation, the soul is a property of the body, but the ability to think is a property of the soul itself, not of the body. If that is the case, then the soul is the body's form and yet thinking need not involve any bodily organ.Shields, "Soul as Subject" 145
Aristotle bases his ethics theory on this teleological worldview. Because of his form, a human being has certain abilities. Hence, his purpose in life is to exercise those abilities as well and as fully as possible. Nicomachean Ethics 1098a16-18 Now, the most characteristic human ability, which is not included in the form of any other organism, is the ability to think. Nicomachean Ethics 1098a1-5 The ability to deliberate makes it possible to choose the course of action that reason deems best—even if it is emotionally undesirable. Contemporary Aristotelians tend to stress exercising freedom and acting wisely as the best way to live. Yet, Aristotle argued that the best type of happiness is virtuously contemplating God and the second best is acting in accord with moral virtue. Either way, for Aristotle the best human life is a life lived rationally. Nicomachean Ethics 1098a7-8
Hasdai Crescas imagines that celestial-body is like Hylé but as matter in actuality, sure over the opposition about this, i.e. in potential existence. Matter and form is always presents in all but celestial-bodies are without form because of their nature; so Hasdai Crescas finds the solution also about this paradox.Hasdai Crescas teaches that the proof of Existence of God and the Creation of World by Maimonides could be explained with parallel-exegesis about the elements of the same proof: Hasdai Crescas and Maimonides teach with words of philosophy but logical-reasons can explain only first view. The second view, that is esoteric-exegesis (the Kabbalah) could be understood with Torah: This is the totality of what we saw fit to say in our concise manner by way of response to the Rabbi’s proofs. It is evident that the number of responses from the first perspective parallels the number of propositions that we mentioned that the Rabbi used. These are in addition to the responses from the second perspective in which we granted the truth of those propositions. What this condition of confusion teaches is that that which provides the truth with respect to these theses has not to this day been fully grasped by recourse to the philosophers. Indeed, the only thing that illuminates all of these deep difficulties is the Torah.
Medieval theology, newly exposed to Aristotle's philosophy, applied hylomorphism to Christian doctrines such as the transubstantiation of the Eucharist's bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus. Theologians such as Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas developed Christian applications of hylomorphism.
Aristotle's texts on the agent intellect have given rise to diverse interpretations. Some following Averroes (Ibn Rushd 1126–1198) argue that Aristotle equated the active intellect with a divine being who infuses concepts into the passive intellect to aid human understanding. Others following Aquinas (1225–74) argue that the Neoplatonic interpretation is a mistake: the active intellect is actually part of the human soul.
In contrast, the accidental forms of S are its non-essential propertiesCross 94—properties that S can lose or gain without changing into a different kind of substance: the chick can lose its feathers (due to, e.g., parasites or the like) without ceasing to be an individual chicken.
Eleonore Stump describes Aquinas' theory of the soul in terms of "configuration". The body is matter that is "configured", i.e. structured, while the soul is a "configured configurer". In other words, the soul is itself a configured thing, but it also configures the body.Stump, "Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism and Materialism without Reductionism" 514. A dead body is merely matter that was once configured by the soul. It does not possess the configuring capacity of a human being.
Aquinas believed that rational capacity was a property of the soul alone, not of any bodily organ.Stump,"Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism and Materialism without Reductionism" 512. However, he did believe that the brain had some basic cognitive function.Stump, "Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism and Materialism without Reductionism" 512. Aquinas’ attribution of rational capacity to the immaterial soul allowed him to claim that disembodied souls could retain their rational capacity as his identification of the soul's individual act of existence allowed him to claim that personal immortality is natural for human beings. Aquinas was also adamant that disembodied souls were in an unnatural stateStump, "Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism and Materialism without Reductionism" 519. and that the perfection of heaven includes God miraculously enabling the soul to function once again as a substantial form by reanimating matter into a living body as promised by the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.
A hylomorphic interpretation of Bohmian mechanics has been suggested, in which the cosmos is a single substance that is composed of both material particles and a substantial form. There is also a hylomorphic interpretation of the collapse of the wave function.
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