Question About Hylomorphism
I have been thinking about Hylomorphism, going back to Aristotle, and one aspect of it is rather perplexing to me that I would like to get clarification on from someone who understands the view better.
By my understanding, a substance (other than God), for Aristotle, is comprised of both form (viz., the whatness that provides the structure to a being) and matter (viz., the substrate of potency that receives the form). Matter (i.e., real, pure potential) is posited as real, instead of merely positing actuality shaping actuality, in order to explain the compresence of properties and identity through time (which receives the changes made to it); for without a bare substrate which is the potentiality that can be actualized there is no change (given that change is the actualization of potentials).
My confusion lies in the fact that, by my lights, potentiality could be posited as the mere possible ways a real object could be affected; and the substrate that provides the compresence and receives the form of a thing could just be the composites which facilitate the form. E.g., why would we need to posit a real potency that is a substrate to explain the apple's properties and potentials when:
1. The properties of the apple are 'held together' by the composition of the particular apple (viz., it's parts); and
2. The parts of the apple expose the apple inherently to the possibility of change because it exposes it to having potentials that could be actualized.
If I am right, then it seems like we can get rid of 'matter' (in Aristotle's sense) and retain form (viz., actuality). Each thing, then, would be caused by a prior actuality which would provide it with compresence of properties, identity through time, and potency by the mere causality of forms upon forms until we trace it back to the being which has a form that entails existence (i.e., God).
Am I misunderstanding the view?
By my understanding, a substance (other than God), for Aristotle, is comprised of both form (viz., the whatness that provides the structure to a being) and matter (viz., the substrate of potency that receives the form). Matter (i.e., real, pure potential) is posited as real, instead of merely positing actuality shaping actuality, in order to explain the compresence of properties and identity through time (which receives the changes made to it); for without a bare substrate which is the potentiality that can be actualized there is no change (given that change is the actualization of potentials).
My confusion lies in the fact that, by my lights, potentiality could be posited as the mere possible ways a real object could be affected; and the substrate that provides the compresence and receives the form of a thing could just be the composites which facilitate the form. E.g., why would we need to posit a real potency that is a substrate to explain the apple's properties and potentials when:
1. The properties of the apple are 'held together' by the composition of the particular apple (viz., it's parts); and
2. The parts of the apple expose the apple inherently to the possibility of change because it exposes it to having potentials that could be actualized.
If I am right, then it seems like we can get rid of 'matter' (in Aristotle's sense) and retain form (viz., actuality). Each thing, then, would be caused by a prior actuality which would provide it with compresence of properties, identity through time, and potency by the mere causality of forms upon forms until we trace it back to the being which has a form that entails existence (i.e., God).
Am I misunderstanding the view?
Comments (83)
I want to say that Aristotle's view is based on his belief that change occurs. So suppose a seed (along with the soil and moisture) changes into a seedling. There is both something that is common to the seed and the seedling (matter) and also something that is different (form). Aristotle does not think it is right to say that there is only a change in form, with no underlying matter which accounts for the continuity between the seed and the seedling. To say that would be to deny the existence of change (because in that case the seed never changes into a seedling, despite the fact that the two phenomena are juxtaposed).
But the view is difficult to understand insofar as neither form nor matter are separate substances. They are more like explanatory principles of material reality. So you say:
Quoting Bob Ross
Pure potency is "prime matter," which is a contentious topic. Yet for the most part Aristotle will say that all matter is informedcertainly all the matter that we encounter has form within it. So we can never point to formless matter. Matter is a principle of material being, not a species or substance.
Matter isn't conceived of as just prime matter. That's a key distinction. For example, man is made of flesh and bone. Each substrate has some form and some matter, some potential/powers, and dispositions to change in certain ways through interactions. Flesh is made up of cells. Cells are made up of organelles. These are made up of molecules. You have layers of form and potential all the way down, and parts ordered to different wholes. Turning all matter into just prime matter, and then ascribing the function of this prime matter to parts seems to collapse this distinction. It would seem to make it hard to say how something complex, like a man, is made up of so many other complex things that are also wholes.
Now perhaps this is what you mean by "composite," but then you really aren't changing anything.
More importantly, Aristotle thinks there is substantial change, that beings come into and out of existence. Men are generated (conceived) and corrupted (die). A dead man is not really a man but a corpse, substantial change. So now the parts you have been relying upon are no longer parts of a whole. They aren't a "composite." The whole has ceased to be. But the body of dead Achilles is still the body of Achilles. There is a persistent identity here that matter explains.
Whereas, if there is only Form A, which is caused by Form B, then there's nothing in between.
But what receives form in generation without matter? When a new organism is generated for instance? Without matter, we would have to say other forms combine into a wholly new forms (apparently one of their potentials). Yet everything physical is capable of becoming anything else given enough steps. The same atoms might be now rain, now part of a cow, now part of a bridge, now part of a dinosaur, now combined into plastic. The same proton can be part of any element. Without the structured hierarchy of matter as substrate, everything has the potential to become everything else. Each part has every potential at all times.
Yet an ant never becomes an anteater without first being reduced to its material substrate and then incorporated into the anteater (i.e. the matter is there to receive form). However, this process also does not reduce the protons in the atoms to hydrogen ions. The breakdown all the way to prime matter never occurs. Hence, the substrate distinction is important and always in play.
Another way to put this is that removing matter risks collapsing logical possibility and metaphysical possibility by making everything possibly anything possible. That a man requires a certain substrate, particular matter, is part of what delimits what man can become. The potential of the substrate is not identical to the potential of the substantial form, but neither is it identical to prime matter. My body could be heated to 10,000 degrees. I could not. That sort of thing.
As Aquinas points out, form also denotes a particular substrate. The substantial form man does not require particular flesh and bones, but it does require flesh and bones. It's part of what it is to be man. But flesh and bones can also just be slabs of meat. So we cannot say that substrate is only a part of a whole, it can exist on its own too.
Now, depending on how you massage all that, maybe you could just say that substrate is actually "parts." But again, then you aren't changing anything.
But I think this is the kicker: efficient causes always involve something actual acting on something potential. If everything was actual, change would be impossible. Form explains formal cause. I suppose that if you add potency to form you can explain efficient cause with just form, but now form isn't really one principle. Your reduction hasn't worked. You still need *just form* to explain formal causes and *form's potential* to explain efficient causation.
So, rereading your post, you seem to just have recreated matter, except now form is two principles instead of one.
But the body of a rabbit can be broken down and become a frog. A thing's potential is not the same as its composite parts. Likewise, flesh and bones cannot speak lest they be part of a living man.
Removing this distinction risks destroying formal (and thus final) causes because a thing's form now lets it be any other thing. How can it have a proper end then? And if modality is to rely on potentiality, it also causes all sorts of problems there (e.g. a man is no longer necessarily not a cat, etc.) Everything is now potentially everything else in virtue of its form. But then, as pointed out earlier, you still need potentiality (or "possibility"), and so the reduction from one principle to two hasn't been accomplished either.
Also, prime matter is arguably not anything at all. Check out the Timaeus and then consider that Aristotle himself identifies the chora with his notion of matter.
What does this mean, "it exposes it to having potentials that could be actualized"? How are you using "expose" here? What would be the difference between having potential and being exposed to potential? If the apple doesn't have potential, but is exposed to potential, where would that potential exist other than within something else. But if the something else has potential relative to the apple, then doesn't the apple also have potential relative to the something else. So doesn't this just amount to saying that the apple has potential, i.e. matter?
All well and good, perhaps, unless or until we want to know what each thing is, how it is to be known as that thing and no other. In such case, the tracing back of its identity through time holds no interest for us.
On the other hand, for that family of things of perfectly natural causality, the knowledge of which is contingent at best, as opposed to man-made assemblages of things in general for which knowledge is necessarily given, to trace the mere causality of forms upon forms inevitably leads to at least contradictions, and at most, to impossibilities.
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Quoting Bob Ross
If matter is missing .what thing can there be? Getting rid of matter in Aristotles sense: is there any sense in which matter is not the particular constituency of a thing, regardless of its arrangement or assemblage according to form?
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But you asked for a better Aristotle-ian hylomorphic understanding than your own, which I admittedly dont have, voluntarily confined to the Enlightenment version of the matter/form juxtapositional attitude.
But the analysis is instructive because it shows the problems that show up in denying matter. For instance, every angel must be its own species because it lacks matter to individuate it. Hence the form is always unique. But if every form is unique for material things, then there will be difficulties in explaining abstraction and universals.
You would need some other individuating principle and some other principle for determining species.
But by matter he is not referring having mass but, rather, a substrate of potentialright?
If so, then how does this seeds actuality (form) conjoined with its potency (matter)? If it is potential, then it is nothing (non-actual); which would entail there is nothing conjoined with the form (the actuality). Otherwise, there is something that is real which is mere potential (matter) that is conjoined with what is actual (form); and this admits of a nothingness that is somethingdoesnt it?
Where my head is at, I would say that seed and seedling are both different developments of the same plant insofar as the seed, as a whole composed of actuality (parts), is affected by something else (e.g, the water, soil, its own internal parts organically functioning, etc.). This view would entail that actuality affects actuality by realizing the potential an actuality has relative to the possible ways that actuality can be affected. For Aristotle, it seems like potency is this real nothingness that is conjoined with the actuality and I am not following how that would work.
But isnt it the actualizing principle that actualizes something already actual in a way that that actual thing (which was changed) could have been affected that accounts for change? Why posit some real potency which receives the form?
My problem with Aristotles view seems to be that he posits some real nothingness (potency) which is conjoined with the actual thing; whereas I am thinking that the underlying actual parts in some arrangement (form) makeup the whole. So I would say that the man persists through time insofar as his parts still compose, by way of arrangement, that of a man; and a dead man is not in that arrangement that an alive man is in. I dont see why we would need to posit a real potency in the sense of a substrate of potential as opposed to positing that real potency is merely the ways something that is actual can be affected relative to what it is (i.e., its form as received by its parts).
Like you said, an object is composed of other objects; so each part is composed of form composed of form. You would, at least insofar as you play Devils advocate, say that its also composed of matter upon matter. However, if form is what is actual and matter is what is potential; then form upon form is just actual beings upon actual beings: it is being composed. So, then, we can explain it this way: an actual object is composed of other actual objects in some arrangement. That arrangement is the actualizing principle of that whole (which composed of actual objects) which is its form. This form, or arrangement, is imposed (or received) by the actual parts of that object; and those actual parts, in turn, are made up of actual parts and their arrangement which makes of that whole is its form. So form is being imposed on form because being is imposed on being; until you get to God as the pure actuality that has no parts.
I guess one way of thinking about it would be that Aristotle would say theres a substrate of potency conjoined with actuality; whereas I am thinking about it as an imposed arrangement (form) conjoined with actuality. I dont see what this magical substrate of potentiality is doing.
Likewise, potency is nothing: it is not actual, but what could be actual relative to the nature of a thingrelative to what its parts can receive. Therefore, real potency is a contradiction in terms: a substrate of potential is a nothingness that is real.
Likewise, if God is pure actuality because He has no parts (and thusly no possibility of receiving any actualization) and actuality actualizes what is actual and matter is a substrate of potency, then how could God create matter? Wouldnt the existence of matter, in this sense, necessitate that that which can receive actuality (i.e., matter) must be so different than what actualizes that it is coeternal with it?
I agree that there is a persistence of identity through time and that change requires this; but I dont see how this entails matter in the sense of real potency. The rabbit cannot become a frog because the arrangement of parts that produces a rabbit is contradictory to that of a frog; which, to me, is to say that the form of a rabbit and a frog are contradictory. Why tack onto this that the rabbit has a substrate of potential that is contradictory to the substrate of a frog?
Yes, this is what got me thinking about it more; because I started getting very confused with the idea that an angel is pure form but not pure actuality.
Form is supposed to be actuality that was imposed onto something; and that something is its parts; and Angels have partsjust not material partsotherwise they would be purely actual. The very idea that an Angel can learn entails they have parts that can be affected. So what exactly does it mean for a being that has parts to be purely formal in contrast to something that has parts but is not purely formal? I dont get it.
This is a very interesting thought from Aquinas that I was recently introduced to. Dont Angels have parts though? By part, I mean something which contributes to the whole without being identical to it. If an angel has no parts, then how is it not God (i.e., purely actual)? If it does, then there can be individuation between them just like material parts: two Angels could have the same Form imposed on different immaterial parts. What do you think?
The arrangement of the parts which makes the whole that whole of this type is the form imposed upon parts (actuality imposed on actuality); and if this is true, then the parts and their arrangement are what dictate potential that a thing hasnot some substrate of potential (viz., matter). Theres no extra entity called matter going on here.
In the sense of what I think Aristotle means, I would say that having potential is to have a substrate that can receive actuality in some way (viz., to have matter) whereas being exposed to potential would be to have the possibility of being affected because of the parts and their arrangement that the thing has (viz., to have form composed of form). For me, composition entails potency; for Aristotle it seems like a substrate of potency entails potency.
I agree that the potency of a thing is relative to that thingnot something external to it; but I dont get what it would mean for their to be this extra matter that is potency that is really conjoined with the actuality (form) of a thing. To me, the parts expose the whole to the possibility of change; because parts can, in principle, be affected and in ways relative to how they are arrangement and what they are themselves. Theres no matter and form here: its just form composed of form.
Well, yes, but it is required for change to occur.
It seems like you are separate causality a prior from causality a posteriori; and I guess I dont see the relevance. We use what is causally given to us to determine what actually is caused: they have a relation to each otherdont they?
If I am understanding Aristotle correctly, form is actuality. Its not like theres being and this being is imposed with form: theres some substrate of potential that is imposed with being (form). So this would mean that matter isnt referring to being: it potential for being. This means that what would be, is some being that isnt conjoined with a substrate of potential.
Its confusing me, to be completely honest.
Not a worry at all: I always appreciate your input.
I already asked Timothy this, but I am curious as to your thoughts as well:
What do you think?
Let me see if you accept this rephrasing.
"We don't need 'real' potency because it is merely the ways in which something actual has the potential to be affected relative to what it is (i.e. a potential to change)."
I don't see how this is a real difference. You are still positing that things have a determinant actuality (what they currently are) and a potential to become something else. So you still need two principles: currently actual form , and the potentiality of form. But matter just is the potentiality underlying of form.
It's what allows us to distinguish substance from accidents. Being snub-nosed is not attributable to the substantial form of Socrates but to his matter; it is an accident (although obviously actual). You seem to risk collapsing this distinction and making all predication essential because all predication is of "form all the way down." If Socrates breaks his nose and becomes snub nosed, you now have to say that his form has fundamentally changed, because form is nothing but the arrangement of actual parts, and "snub nosed" is a new arrangement (or else else you need to somehow make a substantial form/matter type distinction, which again, then you aren't changing anything).
I am not sure what 'real potency' is supposed to denote in this case either, because you are still positing the idea that determinant, actual things "really" have the potential to change, which seems to me like a "real potency."
Right, this is just the idea of matter as determinant substrate. The form of flesh is form as flesh and matter as the matter of a man. The form of the substrate determines its potential. So, a seed can become a plant. Ground seed cannot become a plant, but it can become bread. There are different potencies at play.
I don't get why you refer to "magical potency," but then form possessing both actuality and potential is somehow fine and, at any rate, this still makes form into two principles, one of which is a "real potential."
Further, if everything is simply an arrangement of subsistent parts that are completely actual, then you have basically just recreated early-modern corpuscular materialism. But this is a position rife with problems that Aristotle avoids.
If one acknowledges that things really do have the potential to change, I don't know why "real potency" is problematic or "magical."
They cannot be just the parts, or the replacement of parts makes them cease to be. They cannot be just the current arrangement, or else when the arrangement changes (when Socrates breaks his nose) he ceases to be and becomes something else. Rather, things must be composites with some form accounting for identity and some underlying substrate accounting for change. We might call this "actual parts with potency" instead of matter, but it seems to be effectively the same thing. And it will still involve "real potency." If there were only illusory potency, things could not really change.
I don't really disagree with what you said here; but then isn't the arrangement of parts the form and the matter is just the parts themselves?
Let's Angels for example, if an angel has parts and form but no matter and a chair has parts and form and matter; then that would suggest that matter is distinct from the arrangement of parts and the actuality of parts: it is a third thing. What is that thing?
Chewing over this more, here's what I'm thinking. What tripped me up is really Aquinas' view that a thing could exist that has form but no matter and NOT Aristotle's view that beings are composed of both matter and form (other than God).
The parts which receive the form are the matter, and the form is the arrangement of those parts towards some end. Angels have to have parts to be distinct from God, so they must have matter (if they exist). Otherwise, if they have no matter, then they have no parts; and if they have no parts then they are absolutely simple. But only one absolutely simple being can exist (God), so they can't be without parts.
It seems like Aquinas is incorrectly supposing that matter is some sort of material or physical substrate.
If I am correct here, then the substrate that bears the properties of a thing is its parts (matter) in conjuction with what is supposed to be (in form); and the ultimate substrate for this is Being itself (God).
I think I see what you are saying here, now: I was conflating formality with 'structure of being'. The form of a thing provides the structure of a thing, but is not identical to it. Otherwise, you are right that what the thing is would not exist: it was just be 'that which it is' and this would change when its parts change.
To say, then, that a thing is pure form is to say it is without parts; which would then entail that God is pure form which has no structure (other than speaking about Him analogically) because He is One.
Wouldn't this represent an additional supposition along the lines of reductionism? I.e. that all wholes are just the sum and arrangement of their parts?
I think it's to its credit that Aristotle's system avoids this.
Right, I think this is very tricky and I had to go over it with a professor pretty closely to clear it up for myself because I had similar questions. Obviously, the whiteness of Socrates' hair is something actual, and if something is actual it must be something, and so it must be form and not matter. But the form/matter distinction isn't rigid in that being white must be a property of Socrates or his hair. We can predicate accidents of Socrates attributable to his matter. The properties of what we consider matter vis-á-vis some whole would be considered form if we were analyzing the substrate in isolation.
Form is always actual, but there can be potential that isn't matter. The biggest example comes from De Anima. The intellect is immaterial, but there is distinction between the active (agent) intellect, and the potential (possible) intellect. The intellect can obviously change. We can merely potentially know French and then learn it, and actually know it. We actually get a gradient of first and second actuality.
Yet the intellect is not a composite of form and matter (although some Islamic commentators unhelpfully call the possible intellect the material intellect). It is immaterial, the idea being that it does not have a substrate in the way "material objects" like a statue do. Indeed, the mind is "potentially all things," making is strangely like prime matter in this respect. This is not to say the body doesn't affect the soul; Aristotle isn't anything like a Cartesian dualist. But the intellect is not simply composed of body. It can be, in a sense, anywhere its thoughts are. When we see a tree across the road, we see a tree across the road. The senses are not "in the head.' We don't see the tree "in our head" or know trees as a universal "within our skill," but rather where there are trees. I think this is a huge benefit of Aristotle, because he doesn't confuse physical dependence with some sort of containment.
This use of "material" has to do with what we might call "physical things." They have some definite location, and matter carries the potential to have location, dimension, etc., as well as the limitation of having some specific location, dimension, etc. Angels, being immaterial, do not occupy space, which is why they can all "dance on the head of a pin." In medieval thought, this capacity to occupy physical space was generally thought of as a [I]limitation[/I], rather than something like a power. Matter, at least as informed substrate, always carries with it an actuality such that it is here and not there, and never everywhere.
Confusingly though, people also speak of material causes in geometry, but this is because we are speaking of shape as abstracted from material bodies.
This gets at the heart of my confusion: hopefully you can help clarify it. If the intellect, or anything, has no matter but has potential; then matter is not the substrate of being of a thing nor the parts which comprise it. So may main question to you is: what is matter?
It seems like matter is just the physical or perhaps material substrate of a thingno? Aristotle wasnt using the term matter in terms of having mass: so what is it? I cant wrap my head around what it is supposed to be. If a thing is comprised of parts but has no matter (such as an angel, the intellect, etc.), then what is matter?
EDIT: or are you saying that Arstotle would deny that non-material things have parts? This seems to betray the idea of divine simplicity, but maybe Aristotle doesn't care about that.
Hi Bob - if I may chip in here. I'm no expert but have been reading up on hylomorphism. First point is that the term 'hyle' literally meant 'lumber' or 'timber' - signifying the idea of 'raw material' or a substance that things are made or shaped from.
As regards potentiality and actuality, I've noticed an interesting line of thought which draws on Aristotle in this respect.
In his reflections on quantum theory, Werner Heisenberg appealed to Aristotle's metaphysicsspecifically the distinction between potentia (potentiality) and actus (actuality)as a way to make sense of the observed behavior of subatomic phenomena. He proposed that the quantum state, prior to measurement, should not be thought of as describing something actual in the classical sense, but rather as a set of potentialitiesreal tendencies or dispositions that can be actualized under specific conditions. As he put it:
[quote=Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, p. 41]The probability wave was a quantitative version of the old concept of potentia in Aristotelian philosophy. It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.[/quote]
This line of thought has since inspired more recent philosophical developments, such as Ruth Kastners Transactional Interpretation, in which she elaborates on the notion of res potentiareal potentialitiesas ontologically significant. Kastner and her colleagues argue that quantum states exist as a kind of non-actual reality (or pre-spatiotemporal structure) that becomes actualized through interaction (i.e., measurement). In this way, their work reactivates the Aristotelian framework in a thoroughly modern context - see Quantum Mysteries Dissolve if Possibilities are Realities:
It strikes me that Heisenbergs appeal to potentia isnt just a conceptual bridge to Aristotleit may also subtly reintroduce the idea of degrees of being. In classical metaphysics, especially Neoplatonic and Aristotelian, existence was not a simple binary - particulars could be more or less actualized, more or less real. In contrast, modern metaphysics after Descartes and the rise of mechanism tends to treat existence as univocalsomething either exists or it doesn't with no in-between.
But quantum theory, with its probability waves and superpositions, suggests a more graded or layered ontology. If a quantum state isnt just a fiction but represents a real, albeit non-actual, mode of being, then this seems to reintroduce the idea that there are degrees of real-ness. The higher the probability, the greater the 'tendency to be'to borrow a phrase Aristotle might have approved of. Its an idea that hovers at the edge of physics and metaphysics, but it offers a glimpse of a richer ontological vocabulary than modern science typically permits, and also harks back to the classical 'scala naturae', the great chain of being.
I appreciate your response and that all sounds interesting, but right now I am trying to understand hylomorphism simpliciter (viz., the OG theory). I still haven't been able to wrap my head around what 'matter' is if it does not refer to merely the 'stuff' which are the parts that are conjoined with the form to make up the whole. As @Count Timothy von Icarus pointed out, many Aristotelian thinkers posited beings which are not purely actual but yet have no matter (like Angels and the intellect); and this suggests that matter refers to something other than composed being: it's some sort of substance only physical, or perhaps material, things have and it doesn't refer to 'having mass' either. So let me ask you: what is it?
Yes, great questionbut I think there's actually a deep connection between what Count Timothy said about the immaterial intellect and the point I made about Heisenberg and res potentia.
If were asking, what is matter?, then one part of the Aristotelian answer is that matter is that which has the potential to take form. But then we can ask: what about things that are possible-but-not-yet-actualdo they count as material? Not necessarily. As Count Timothy pointed out, the active intellect is potentially all things, yet it too is immaterial.
Thats where I think the comparison with quantum theory is relevant. In Heisenbergs interpretation of Aristotle, the wavefunction doesnt describe an actual physical state, but a set of real possibilitiesa kind of structured potentiality. He even likens this directly to Aristotles potentia. So here too we have a domain of potentiality that is not quite material in the [s]classical[/s] usual sense, but also not nothing.
It raises the intriguing possibility that potentialitywhether in the intellect or in the quantum fieldis an ontological category separate to what materially exists: neither actual nor material, but still real. Which might suggest that our usual modern categoriesmatter vs. spirit, physical vs. mentaldont do justice to the subtle gradations that both Aristotle and quantum theory seem to be pointing to.
I think you're looking for an unequivocal definition of what matter is, but that its nature is actually very elusive - again, something that modern physics is all too aware of.
Aristotle showed how this is problematic. Each part, if it was divisible, would itself be an arrangement of parts, and that would lead to infinite regress. And, if we assume that things are composed of fundamental indivisible parts, like the atomists proposed, this is also problematic. There would be nothing to distinguish one indivisible part from another indivisible part, and all would be one.
Quoting Bob Ross
I think it would be more appropriate to say that the underlying substrate has received actuality. We are talking about what actually is, and this means it has form already.
I believe the problem you are encountering is due to your jumping ahead, trying to understand "matter" as potential, without getting a fundamental understanding of how "matter" is defined. "Matter" goes into the category of "potential", but this is not how it is defined in the basic sense.
Quoting Bob Ross
You'll find the answer to this question, in its most basic form, in Aristotle's Physics, where he defines "material cause", in Bk2, Ch 3 "that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists". Notice that the matter of a thing, is in a sense, independent from the thing itself. The matter precedes the existence of the thing, and it persists in existence after the thing perishes. I believe that this is important to understand, because it is the basis of "contingent being". All things made of matter were generated, and will perish, as their matter out lasts them.
So "matter" accounts for the perishability of things, and the fact that things have a beginning in time. But since "matter" cannot account for the reason why a thing is the thing it is, rather than something else, we need to posit "form" as well, to allow that things have whatness.
But then matter is something: it isnt pure potency. There is a something that is receptive to changefair enough.
If matter is just that which has the potential to take form and this is necessary for change and angels can change (e.g., by learning), then wouldnt angels be made up matter?
The problem I have is that matter seem to be referring to the mere stuff that can receive a form AND material stuff. An angel has matter in the former sense, but not the latter.
How is it potentially all things ontologically? It can know things by apprehending the form of a thing, but it doesnt thereby become identical to it.
Atomism is false because it posits two or more absolutely simple beings and an absolutely simple being is ontologically indistinguishable from another.
The infinite divisibility of an object is not only possible but necessary. God is the only absolutely simple being (i.e., divine simplicity) and if God is the first member of the causal regress of the composition of an object (which would be the case if the composition is finite in parts) then there would have to be at least one part which is also absolutely simple which is impossible; therefore an objects composition must be equally indivisible and subsistent being of each member is derivative of God as the first cause outside of the infinite regress.
Ultimately, reality is a giant infinite web of causality with God as the first cause; and these are both equally necessarily true. The difference between parts is that they are wholes which can be compared.
Yes, but this does seem to posit that there is a real kind of being or substance, distinct ontologically from the parts of a thing, which has the capacity to receive form.
But this could be the stuff which is the parts of a thingno? It fits the definition of that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists. The parts persist when the whole perishes and the parts are out of which the whole is birthed.
I dont see how this is necessarily the case. A thing could be made of some substance which is capable of receiving form, exist as the whole between the form and its imposition on that substance, have the potential to be affected by other things, and yet no other thing affects it; thereby remaining unchanged. It is metaphysically possible for a thing that is perishable to be in an environment where it will not perish.
One place where Aristotle defines matter, he says the following:
Quoting Bob Ross
I think you are conflating matter with potency. There is a relation between the two, but they are not the same thing.
More generally, for Aristotle matter and form are not two substances that must be added together and conjoined by way of some third thing. Hylomorphism is the doctrine that substances are matter-form unities.
Quoting Bob Ross
Material form is not subsistent apart from matter. That's just not how reality works. We don't say, "The round," we say, "The basketball is round."
Quoting Bob Ross
I think thats basically what Aristotle thought. He certainly did not think God creates matter.
But note that Aristotle in no way wants to begin with God. Aristotle wants to begin with things that we naturally understand, like stones and animals. Aristotle would not accept your presupposition that we should begin our inquiry with God.
Quoting Bob Ross
I think you are getting closer here.
I would actually recommend looking at Physics I.8, given that your objection to matter (but really potency) is so close to the view that Aristotle examines there.
You are saying something like, What use is potency if it doesnt do anything? Aristotle begins his dialectical portion by looking at those who denied the existence of change:
Aristotles answer to this puzzle seems to be the same answer to your own quandary. You will have to read it, but the key is that matter is not merely what is not and form is not merely what is. In fact Aristotle will go on to distinguish matter from privation in chapter 9.
I think it is right to say that proximate matter and form are the same thing, but seen from a different angle. Proximate matter is the thing qua potency and (substantial) form is the thing qua actuality. In these characteristic examples of material substances there is no such thing as (proximate) matter apart from form or form apart from matter. For example, when we talk about the form of a bronze statue we are not talking about something apart from the bronze. We are talking about something that the bronze possesses within itself; something that inheres in the bronze.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes, I think this is the question you are asking. I want to say that for Aristotle "matter" and "form" begin as common terms that are then fleshed out philosophically. So if we look at a bronze statue then the matter is the bronze and the form is the shape. And then we could look at the bronze itself, which is proximate matter (i.e. matter conjoined with form), and say that the matter of bronze is the various compounds of the alloy, and the form is their configuration and proportion.
The form is something like the "shape" or intelligibility of the thing, whereas the matter is that which receives the form, or that in which the form inheres. Again, they are not separable, but rather two principles of unified being. So bronze is matter qua statue, and the various compounds of the alloy are matter qua bronze (and then we could go on and on, examining the proximate matter of the compounds, etc.).
Matter is something like that in which the form inheres; the non-accidental substratum of the matter-form unity. It's not a layer cake where matter is on the bottom, form is on the top, and you need an intermediate layer to conjoin the two.
Non-material entities don't have parts in the way material entities are composites of parts. But we can make distinctions within them. The stuff on the intellect is open to a lot of interpretation though, which is why Islamic commentators ran in quite different directions with it (Averoese being a particularly interesting one).
Aristotle is in many ways a philosopher of quiddity. His main question is: "why are things what they are?" and not "why are things at all?" He thinks the cosmos is eternal. Hence, existence is not a question for him. That's what makes Aquinas, while very similar in some respects, quite different. He adds an existential twist that changes a lot
Aristotle throws out the idea of a number of pure actualities moving the world in the Metaphysics, although whether this speculation is actually consistent with the entire corpus, or just a dialectical suggestion, or a stray note is another question.
For Aquinas, there is no difficulty here. Angels and demons are only form, but they are not sheer existence. Only God is subsistent, pure being.
Actually, it's a debate in Thomistic studies whether matter is still the individuating principle or if it is the "act of existence," (and whether this is really a difference, and what it entails).
The focus on the act of existence is something I find very useful, in that it helps avoid conceptualizing form and universals as calcified logic entities. Ultimately, we have a process philosophy grounded by infinite being, which is something that comes across well in St. Maximus as well (who takes much from Aristotle).
Yes, Aquinas does depart from Aristotle occasionally. On this occasion he is hyper-aware of his departure. Metaphysically, when it comes to material existence Aquinas stays very close to Aristotle, whereas at the extremes he departs a bit (e.g. prime matter, God, angels, etc.).
(@Bob Ross)
I appreciate your guys' thoughts on this. Here's what I am thinking.
"Matter" is 'that which has the potential to receive form'; and 'form' is the 'actualizing principle which gives a thing it's substantial structure'. In this sense, Aquinas' idea of a pure form that is not purely actual is patently false; for parts have the potential to receive form and all beings other than the actus purus have parts. So Angel's have matter: just not material matter.
The idea that matter is eternal seems false in the sense that prime matter could ever exist (yet alone eternally): if Aristotle thinks, as Leontiskos pointed out, that matter is eternal in the sense of never being created then he is using the idea of matter as if it is a separate substance and this eternal matter would be prime matter. On the contrary, the way I see it, that which has the potential to receive form (i.e., matter) is just the potential an already existent substance (comprised of actuality and potency: matter and form) has---the matter and form of a thing are like two sides of the same coin instead of two different substances; so each object has matter insofar as it is comprised of something(s) which have potency until we get to God as the utlimate cause which has no potency (i.e., is not comprised of anything). Consequently, matter, being the potential that the parts of a thing has, is not some separate thing conjoined with form that God creates: it is just a symptom of creating things with parts.
I believe Aquinas gets his critique of prime matter right (more or less) and I simply wasn't understanding how God creates matter with things; but I realize now I was treating it like a separate substance that God creates with things. Matter is must always coincide with form because they are two sides of the same coin: the parts (which have being) are what have the potential to receive form and the form is what gives those parts their structure towards the end. Matter, then, always existed and will always exist with creation because God must create His totality of creation as an infinite of things with parts upon parts upon parts upon ... interrelated to each other; for if we suppose that God creates an object which has a finite chain of parts that derive ultimately back to God (causally), then the very first part(s) after God (as the ultimate one) of the said object would have to also have no parts (since the only more fundamental cause has no parts which could comprise it) and two absolutely simple beings cannot exist. A finite series of composition results in an absolutely simple being creating at least two parts as the first element or member of composition for the object and these two parts would be atomic (i.e, absolutely simple) since they themselves have no parts.
To answer Count, the individuating principle, then, is parts: the stuff that has the potential to receive form; and thusly Angel's being immaterial would not change the fact that the individuation principle would equally apply to them as well. The only kind of being with pure form, then, would be a being which is purely actual; and this kind of being has no principle of individuation that can be applied since it has no parts (i.e., no matter).
I think I've clarified it now: let me know if I am missing anything.
I think that's good progress. I don't actually read Aristotle or Aquinas as having anything near the focus on "parts" that you have, so I wouldn't attribute such an emphasis on "parts" to them. Apart from that, I think you're beginning to understand Aristotle's matter/form hylomorphism better. :up:
Reword it like this: matter is some thing.
If it is 'a thing' then it has form. If it has no form, then it's not a thing.
Quoting Leontiskos
General question: I have the idea that Aristotle's biology is what we would call 'holistic'. He identifies that there is an animating principle which determines how all of the parts are organised for the benefit of the whole. Is that fair?
Whether or not prime matter is said to exist, it could still function as a theoretical entity representing the conservation of matter (or in our terms, energy). Any such conservation principle requires something which is conserved, even despite the fact that everything observable changes. That "something" could be said to be prime matter for Aristotle. The most obvious objection here would be to say that there is no such thing as a conservation principle, but that objection does not seem overly plausible.
Quoting Bob Ross
It might be fun to consider a similar objection that Aquinas gives:
Quoting Aquinas, ST I.50.2.ad3 - Whether an angel is composed of matter and form?
Yes! See what I say <here> about David Oderberg's, "Reverse Mereological Essentialism." But your phrasing is quite good.
Such an infinite regress is incoherent and therefore logically impossible.
Quoting Bob Ross
We are talking about hylomorphism aren't we? The form of a thing is distinct ontologically from the matter of the thing. And, if we divide a thing into parts each part will have form and matter. Infinite regress in such division is incoherent because it implies that there is no substratum, therefore no substance, allowing for infinite possibility, but this is contrary to empirical evidence.
Quoting Bob Ross
You do not seem to understand what "parts of a thing" means. To be "the parts of a thing", the existence of the thing is necessary. Therefore the parts of a thing cannot preexist the thing. If certain things are used in the creation of a thing, and therefore become parts of that thing, they are something other than parts of that thing prior to becoming parts of that thing. And after the thing perishes they are no longer parts of that thing, but something else.
This distinction is very important in understanding the nature of "form". The things, which may through some creative act, become the parts of something, have a distinct form, which is completely distinct from the form of that possible whole. When they become the parts of that whole their forms are different than they were, now being parts of that whole.
This is why considering the priority of matter always leads to an infinite regress. Each time we say that a thing has been made by putting parts together, those parts cannot be pure matter, they must themselves, have forms, as prime matter is unintelligible. So as much as matter is prior to the thing which is composed of it, it cannot be prior in an absolute sense. The incoherent infinite regress is avoided by understanding the priority of form in the creative act, and positing form rather than matter, as substance. Then "matter" as a concept just stands in as a substitute, a place holder, for forms which the human intellect cannot grasp. Those are the independent, separate forms, which are prior to material existence itself.
Quoting Bob Ross
I think that your argument is refuted by what is known as the principle of plenitude. If given enough time, every possibility will necessarily be actualized. This is exactly the problem with your attitude of allowing for infinite regress. If we allow infinite time then we must allow the reality of all sorts of absurdities, like the infinite monkey theorem. That's one reason why infinite regress must be rejected as fundamentally repugnant to reason, therefore incoherent.
Conservation principles, like the conservation of mass, and the conservation of energy, are ideals which are put to use in practice. However, in reality, the real physical world does not obey them. There is always energy lost as time passes, and the discrepancy is written off as energy which is lost to the system, or sometimes as entropy. So this is not an argument that there is no such thing as conservation principles, there clearly is, and they are very useful. However, the real world doesn't actually obey them, and to understand the secrets of the real world is to understand why it doesn't live up to these ideals.
This is similar to the ideal which the ancients held, and Aristotle discussed, eternal circular motion. The orbiting of the sun, moon, and planets, was thought to be eternal circles. However, the circles were later demonstrated to be other than perfect circles, therefore the logic which made these circles eternal (and the universe would be eternal if conservation laws ere true) was effectively refuted. And the true nature of the solar system was revealed by understanding how the orbits did not actually live up to those ideals.
So we can make the same argument against "prime matter". It's an ideal, which is not consistent with reality. We can employ it in theories etc., where it is useful, but we need to recognize that it is not an accurate representation of truth. And the path of metaphysics will lead us into these areas where such concepts fail, thereby guiding us toward understanding the secrets of the real world.
My understanding of this would be to say that prime matter would just be being itself (permeated through forms); because matter is only conserved in the sense that destroying the whole does not destroy the parts: it just makes those parts no longer parts.
Yeah, I read his entire section on that and it just seems like hes thinking of physical matter: not anything that could receive a form. Only things which have parts have potency; otherwise, there is nothing that can be affected. So Angels must have parts if they have potency.
Likewise, to say something is purely form doesnt make sense to me: all form is purely form. When we have an object that is a substance comprised of form and matter, the form infused with the matter is itself purely form. To be fair, I am assuming he means pure form as ~something which has being with no matter and only form; but, then, a form is the actualizing principle which has behind it a universal: its not identical to pure actuality. A universal is not a form without act; and act is not a form without being permeated in matter. Both are equally incoherent. Pure actuality, then, is just pure being self-subsisting; and pure act is the permeation of form in matter by way of the creation of matter with being out of nothing.
Yes, but then there isnt some other substance which can receive potentiality. Matter is not a substrate which receives form. The material out of which something is created is the already existed stuff (objects) which can be made into a whole (by way of it receiving the form of the whole); so each object is both comprised of form and matter only insofar as its parts are the matter and its form is the actualizing principle of the structure that makes those parts its parts. There is no substrate of matter.
Blanketly asserting this doesnt help further the discussion. I gave an elaborate account of why it is possible and necessary. Heres what I gathered you mean by it being incoherent:
A substance, in hylomorphism, is the form (act) and matter (parts) conjoined. There is no other substratum besides that; and matter as a substrate would imply it is its own substance, which is impossible because it would entail that (A) there is a substance of pure potentiality whereof potentiality is non-being and (B) that there are two absolutely simple beings (one being purely actual and the other purely potential).
You are partly correct, though: if each object gets its being from its parts and those parts from its parts ad infinitum then none of them would exist; for none of them have being in-itself. This is why it is necessary to posit a purely actual, self-subsisting being, to account for the being of objects; however, as I noted before, it is equally necessary that an object is infinitely divisible. This is not to say that an object does not have a finite series of causes. There can exist, and necessarily exists, an infinite chain of causality of parts; but that infinite chain is infused with being through Godpure actuality. Pure being permeates through the infinity of parts.
I understand that: you are right that the part of a whole is no longer a part (of that whole) if the whole is not there. I was just loosely referring to the objects which would or did comprise the whole in question: the matter that receives the form in question.
Hyle (matter) + morphe (form) = substance. Neither are a substance themselves. They both exist intertwined together. A purely actual being, God, is neither pure form or matter: He is self-subsisting being itself. Being is what gives the form and matter together being as a substance; which is identical to pure acts of creation by way of thought/will of a form into matter.
That doesnt refute what I said: in principle, hypothetically, a being could exist which is never affected by anything and yet is not incapable of change.
The substrate is what is translated as 'prime matter'. In this, I will defer to the others here with greater knowledge of Aristotle, but based on encyclopedia entries: Aristotle's Prime Matter (pr?t? hul?) is conceived as pure potentiality. Imagine the most basic "stuff" of the universe, utterly undifferentiated and without any inherent qualities, forms, or properties of its own. It's not actually anything specific, but has the potential to become anything (to 'take form', so to speak).
This idea of prime matter is crucial for Aristotle's explanation of change, especially what he called substantial change when one thing completely transforms into another (like a plant decaying into earth). For change to occur, there must be something underlying that persists throughout the transformation. Prime matter serves as this ultimate, enduring substratum. Without it, Aristotle argued, things would have to come into being from absolute nothingness, which he rejected as impossible ('nothing comes from nothing').
But because prime matter possesses no form or qualities, it cannot be directly observed or even understood in isolation (like I said, 'not a thing'). It is only possible to encounter things that are already a combination of matter and form actual objects with specific characteristics. Hence Prime Matter is often described by what it isn't, rather than what it is.
For Aristotle, prime matter was generally considered ungenerated and indestructible. It was an eternal principle underpinning all creation and destruction in the observable world.
Speculatively, there are parallels to this concept (if it is a concept) and the mysterious 'fields' of today's cosmological physics. Nowadays particles are said to be 'excitations of fields' rather than self-existent point-particles. It is at least analogically suggestive. (There are modern interpretations of hylomorphism in quantum physics but that would take us too far afield.)
In his reply Aquinas says that material things have a twofold composition, and immaterial things (namely creatures) have a "onefold" {my word} composition. So he is explicit that an angel possesses a kind of composition.
Despite the fact that substance is the individual, which is a composite of matter and form, when you read his Metaphysics, you'll find that Aristotle determines that "substance" is properly assigned to form. This is because n the case of self-subsisting things, the substance of the thing cannot be separated from the thing's form. Therefore the thing's form and the thing's substance are one and the same.
Quoting Bob Ross
Why do you say this? It is definitely not Aristotelian, as he clearly demonstrates why it s incoherent to assume infinite divisibility of anything substantial. This is the reason you yourself stated " if each object gets its being from its parts and those parts from its parts ad infinitum then none of them would exist; for none of them have being in-itself".
So I'll ask you again, why do you insist that it is necessary that an object is infinitely divisible. I think this is incoherent, because such an object cannot exist, therefore it is contradictory to say that such a thing (anything which might be infinitely divisible) is an object.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is incorrect. In the case of self-subsisting things, the form is the substance. For reference, this is discussed in Metaphysics Bk 7.
Quoting Bob Ross
They are not intertwined together, that is a misunderstanding. This is discussed in his description of generation in Bk 7.
Quoting Bob Ross
It does refute your hypothesis. With an infinite amount of time, which is what you allow, that being would necessarily affect and be affected, or else it would be false to say that it is capable of affecting or being affected.
Not at all! From my amateur perspective, you have hit the entailing nail (Pure Potential) on the head. My own personal worldview is based on a notion similar to Hylomorphism, but expressed in 21st century terms : Information & Causation. Information is the meaning (definition) of a knowable thing, and Causation is the trans-form-action of that physical Thing (hyle) into a new Form (morph).
The science of Cosmology has traced this transformation of Energy into Matter back to the Big Bang beginning. At that point, the trail goes cold in an abyss of infinity, so pragmatic scientists close-up shop and go home. But philosophers, undeterred by absence of hard evidence, leap the information gap into the unknown by means of rational inference (every action has a prior cause) and poetic metaphor (chicken & egg ; tree & seed).
Philosophy doesn't reveal practical Facts, but theoretical Truths. For example, in imagination, Aristotle followed the trail of Causation to the end of observation, and then deduced a First Cause prior to the known-world Effect. Being practical-minded though, he didn't call it a conventional God, but gave it an operational definition : such as Unmoved Mover. Likewise, Plato made a functional distinction, similar to Hylomorphism, in terms of Potentiality & Actuality. Like a Creator God though, prior Potential entails the existence of Actual things --- or what Whitehead called actual occasions.
You asked : why would we need to posit a real potency? In my thesis of Enformationism, the Form (whatness) of a new thing is necessarily prior*1 to the material existence (isness) of the observable object. In my former profession as an Architect, a new building is posterior*1 to the design (form ; concept) of its structure. That complex idea must be conveyed to builders as an abstract design (blueprint), and then implemented in concrete bricks & mortar. Without the design (morph), a brick is just dried mud.
In this analogy, the real potency is merely an imaginary Idea, or Ideal (definition of a thing). And the idealizing Mind that dreams-up the idea (design) has traditionally been described as some kind of anthro-morphic creator : a God or Cosmic Architect. But, due to my emphasis on the compresence*2 of physical & metaphysical Information*3 --- like Einstein's equation of Energy & Matter --- I like to call that "prior actuality" a Programmer.
To modern secular minds, such unreal immaterial Potency does not make sense. And yet, Potential can be defined as not-yet-real. And we have many examples of such potency (e.g. voltage) in the real world. So, the notion of a pre-bang First Cause does make functional sense, if not factual sensation. :smile:
*1.In Bayesian statistics, prior probability is your initial belief about an event or parameter before observing any data, while posterior probability is the updated belief after incorporating new information or evidence.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=prior+vs+posterior+probability
*2. The "compresence of opposites" refers to the philosophical idea that contrary or contradictory properties can exist simultaneously in the same thing or within a single entity. This concept is often explored in the context of understanding the nature of reality, particularly in relation to Plato's theory of Forms and the nature of sensible particulars.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=compresence+of+opposites
*3. What is Information?
The Power to Enform
https://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page16.html
Yes, but then matter, albeit not pure matter in the sense of prime matter, is something separable, in principle, as its own entity. For something which in-itself is pure potential to receive form is toto genere different than that which is actual (viz., has form).
Ive already noted the non-beingness of prime matter objection; but I will also briefly note that another issue is that prime matter would be absolutely simple and Aristotle equally holds that pure actuality is absolutely simple; but two absolutely simple beings cannot exist because they are ontologically indistinguishablenot merely conceptually or epistemically indistinguishable.
Of course, someone could object that prime matter cannot exist on its own; but, then, there doesnt seem to be any matter in the sense of being an entity capable of receiving any formthat would be a substance of its own even if it always must be conjoined with something that does not have or has limited potential (like actuality).
But the annihilation of a substance (as a whole) is done by the actualization of potentials of its parts which are potentials that necessarily annihilate the form it had (thusly disbanding the whole-parts relationship). It seems like Aristotle would reject this and say that the parts of a thing do not have the potential to be actualized in a way that would annihilate its own form (e.g., modifying the parts of a tree by burning it to lose its form of a tree).
I agree; but pure actuality actualizing something out of nothing is something I would imagine Aristotle would accept; and this is how the entirety of the infinity of parts and wholes originateout of nothing from God.
But if it is pure potentiality; then it has no actuality. Right? So it is non-being. Unless, are you saying actuality is not identical to being?
Fair enough. However, isn't he, then, implying that matter is something which something with parts, in principle, does not necessarily have? If so, then how is this coheren with defining 'matter' as 'that which has the potential to receive form'?
Does Aquinas not think that an Angel's composition is that of recieved form? Namely, a form that is infused with its parts; afterall, the parts of an angel are parts of an angel and not parts of something else (or not parts at all) exactly because they are infused with a form that unifies them into a whole. Right?
Aquinas is claiming that an angel does not have matter, and therefore has no material parts, but that it does have a composition of essence + existence, which differentiates it from Pure Act:
Quoting Aquinas, ST I.50.2.ad3 - Whether an angel is composed of matter and form?
"Hence the nature itself is related to its own existence as potentiality to act." I.e.:
So Aquinas posits a potency-act distinction in angels (and every created being), by positing the essence-existence distinction. For Aquinas although the standard sort of potency-act distinction is indeed matter-form, there is nevertheless a second potency-act distinction within substances, namely essence-existence, and this applies not only to material substances but also to immaterial substances.
Yes, that is perfectly fine; and does not really deny that substance is comprised of matter and form. Its an analogical account of God. We say God has a nature or essence that is identical to His existence analogically and not univocally. God doesnt really have an essence because, as you noted, He is self-subsisting, absolutely unified, Being itself. An essence is tied to the form of a thing, and a form is an actualizing principle which gives the structure to a being; but structure, and this infusion, implies parts. God has no parts, so we speak of His nature only as an analogy of comparison to describe Him.
I am not claiming it is Aristotelian, and I demonstrated it to you here in a former post:
In short, if we have a causal series with God as the beginning for composition like [G, [P1], [P2], [P3], , O] (where God is G, the Ps refer to parts, and O refers to the object/whole in question), then the immediate subsequent member of the causal chain from God must also be absolutely simple (which in this case is the set of parts containing one element/part, P1); for that part would be composed of either (1) God (which is an absolutely simple being so He would provide no parts to this part, P1) or (2) its own self-subsisting being (since nothing comes prior to it that has parts and is not from God). Either way, e.g., the set [P1] contains parts which have no parts. This is impossible because there would, then, be at least two beings that are absolutely simple; and two absolutely simple beings are indistinguishable ontologically. I am pretty sure you would disagree with the idea that ontological simplicity entails one such kind of being (as a possibility); but you get the point.
I did say that, and it does not refer to what you are thinking of. The causality of everything bottoms out at Gode.g., if the set {E} contains everything that is caused, then the set of causality (including what causes, not just what is caused) would be [G, {E}]but the causality of composition in terms of parts/whole is an infinite set; and this infinite set is identical to {E}. Gods very being is permeated through the infinite collection, which is what accounts for the being of these parts/wholes. As I noted in the quote you have of me, this we can know because an infinite collection of parts and wholes is insufficient to explain how they exist; for each member gets being derivatively from the other and yet no member has the intrinsic ability to be. This means there must be a cause outside of that chain of composition which being is derived from. This is true irregardless if one accepts the infinite divisibility of composition or not.
Imagine a block in a room standing still. Imagine the air is removed from the room and you know with 100% certainty nothing will ever infiltrate into the room nor will anything in the room be changed by something in the room. This block, given infinite time, would remain that block in the exact manner it was and will also be.
Got it. So, if I am understanding correctly, Aquinas does believe that matter is NOT merely that which is capable of receiving form but also is something physical. If so, then that's fine: I am just using the term matter to refer to that which can receive form simpliciter.
A key difference here would be belief in the eternal existence of matter (Aristotle), or the pre-existence of matter (some heterodox theologians), whereas Aquinas holds to the orthodox positions of creation ex nihilo. But he thinks this is something that comes to us from revelation, and that Aristotle merely fails to prove the eternity of the world.
However, I think it's a bit stronger than that when you take Aquinas' corpus as a whole, because the preexistence of anything but God makes no sense. Essence, what something is, exists in God in the way a sculpture exists in the mind of the sculptor, as creative potential (generally ascribed to the Logos, Christ, in the Patristics). But everything exists in God, "in whom we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). And so there is a clear distinction between essence, what, and existence, that, both of which must be posterior to God.
When God creates the intelligences (which being intelligences, are immaterial) he is bringing them into being with a certain whatness, through the granting of existence to form (not through generation, the informing of matter, but rather through creation from nothing) but these are not pure being (essence ? existence), and so they are subject to change. Indeed, since God can change all finite creatures, this clearly must be so, since only infinite, subsistent being is changeless, since all else is subject to the divine will. The contrary would imply that God needs matter to create.
I have a good quote on this pointing out the radical dependence of creation. This existential shift is very consequential, so even though Aquinas keeps a lot of Aristotle, this has very large ramification. But Aristotle had also been interpreted as a Platonist/Neo-Platonist for centuries (and not without reason), so the difference isn't as large as it might seem, at least on some readings of Aristotle. Still, I think it's fairly different. Matter plays a different role given this separation of form and actuality/existence.
Or from the introduction:
What I deny is your premise, that God is absolutely simple. This mistake I attribute to Neo-Platonists who wanted to make God "the One". Christian theologists rejected this for the Trinity. And Aristotle refuted that conception of divinity as "the One" in his discussion on the meaning of "unity" and "one". To make God absolutely simple is to make God "One" in the sense of a mathematical Ideal, and mathematical ideals are potencies rather than actualities. So the Neo-Platonist's divinity turns out to be an absolute potency. But this infinite potential, by Aristotelian principles (cosmological argument) is actually in a sense, impotent, not having any actuality to be able to actualize anything, even itself. That is why Neo-Platonism has difficulty explaining emanation, it must be explained by principles other than causation. Then this is a sort of incoherent concept, which has things emanating from "the One", but not through causation.
I would say the existence (being), essence/form, and matter of a thing are all different but related aspects of it. The being is just what makes it real; the form/essence is the universal idea of a thing that makes it the kind of thing it is (viz., provides its whatness); and the matter of a thing is the beings which receive the form through act.
Where it gets weird is that the beings which receive the form have the same setup; namely, they are form received by other beings (which comprise them) through act; and so matter is really just the preexisting being which receives the form ad infinitum.
Of course, if all there is causally is just this infinite regress of composition (of form and matter) then there would be no being; for each member lacks the innate ability to self-subsist (but rather gets it derivatively from another). Therefore, there must be a first cause which is purely actual (viz., self-subsisting being) which provides the being to the infinite regress of composition.
It must be an infinite regress of composition, as opposed to a finite regress, because (1) a finite regress would entail at least two absolutely simple beings (which is impossible) and (2) there would be no matter (since it is just preexisting being which has the potency to receive form).
This also means that God must create the infinite regression of (at least) His immediate creation simultaneously; and this preexistence of matter is merely atemporal.
If the form of a thing is its existence, then it cant have parts; right? There would be nothing to receive the form (i.e., nothing previously which has being to receive it), so a pure form would be a being that is pure idea that self-subsistently exists: isnt that God? Maybe even God isnt this kind of being, because God really doesnt have a form; for He is absolutely simplewe merely talk of Him having a form analogically.
This honestly makes his view even more confusing to me; because I thought he was arguing that Angels are each their own species because they have no matter whatsoever.
Also, how can there be a difference between mental (spiritual) and physical (material) matter? Both are stuff that a thing is made up of which can be immaterial insofar as they are not in space or time.
This isn't a direct counter to my point. If you have finite divisibility, then you will end up with multiple absolutely simple beings (even if they are just 'atoms') and this is impossible. To hold your view, you have to accept that two absolutely simple beings are not ontologically indistinguishable from each other.
Again, this treats matter as if it is a something that can be created by God to receive a form; and that, whereas, God can also create something which has form without creating this something that receives the form.
I am merely asking:
1. What is this something?
2. How could form be imbued with being without requiring the creation of parts?
For number 1, my answer I have unraveled so far (by merely thinking about it) is that matter, this something, is merely that which is capable of receiving form; and only parts are capable of receiving form. So, it follows that the beings which preexist (at least atemporally) the form which is imbued into it are the only beings which can be said to be matter (relative to form). This, of course, leads to the necessary conclusion that composition is infinite and that there is a first cause outside of that infinity for the being of each part (which is God).
For number 2, I find this so far to be metaphysically impossible: Aquinas seems to be blundering by using a notion of some matter that is physical and trying to omit that for the sake of spiritual substances. However, even these spirits are made up of parts; for otherwise they would be purely actual; and this entails that they have matter in the sense that I defined it in #1.
I am not following why Aquinas is treating matter as if it is more than just the potency preexisting beings have to receive form.
That's a faulty conclusion. All we need to do is accept that form is categorically different from matter, therefore formal causes are categorically different from material causes. No being is simple, as each is a composition of matter and form. And, the priority of form (such as God, and the soul, who are not properly "beings" but Forms) allows that matter is created (not from nothing, but from form) according to the specific purpose intended.
Matter, in this sense, is still a constituent in a thing with parts; so either a composed being is composed infinitely or there is a part which is has (somewhere along the line) that has no parts itself.
That would be the form. But form is complex (not in the sense of having material parts though), and not simple. If you do not accept the categorical difference between matter and form you'll be forever stuck in the same rut.
You are missing the point.
Even if you accept that there can be a being of pure form, they would have immaterial parts. Parts comprise wholes; and my argument addresses wholes and parts simpliciter.
We can run this argument for something like and Angel that is pure form as well:
1. Either the Angel is comprised of an infinite or finite regression of immaterial parts.
2. A finite regress of immaterial parts entails at least two ultimate parts which are not made up of parts. (For there must be at least one part where the regression ends which by definition has no further parts and there must be two because if there's only one such part then it is identical to the whole which it comprises making it not a part but rather that whole)
3. Two or more beings without parts cannot exist.
4. Therefore, an Angel must be comprised of an infinite regression of parts.
edit: positing a distinction between types or kinds of parts, such as immaterial vs. material parts, does not rejoin my argument here.
In skimming this thread, I must have missed "the OG theory". And "hylomorphism simpliciter" may be above my pay grade. But I think has clearly & simply presented the traditional philosophical answer to your basic question "what is matter"? And he has even introduced the non-classical Quantum notion of statistical Stuff (pure Form?). Which, absent the hyle, probably would not make sense to Aristotle, but might fit into Plato's world of abstract Forms.
So, I'd like to add that modern physics has a counter-intuitive mathematical definition of Matter, that doesn't make sense to non-mathematicians : the fundamental element of reality is not material (actual) "stuff"*1, but immaterial (statistical) Fields*2. Since those Fields are not something you can see or touch, they are more like Aristotle's Potentia (statistical probability) as distinguished from Actus (real thing).
The total Universal (unified) Field is mathematically defined in terms of an infinite array of dimensionless points, not in space, but of space. Which amounts to nothing, unless those valueless points consist of Potential Energy, that can be actualized, or realized, or excited by some outside force or internal perturbations (conflicts?)*3. Unlike that imaginary Field, some local fields (e.g. electromagnetic) are measurable, hence real & physical & dimensional. But the UF is an Ideal, and may be equivalent to Aristotle's Potentia*4, which may also be the "formless stuff" that combines with enforming (actualizing) Energy to produce tangible Matter : hylo + morph.
It's over my head, but A.N. Whitehead published a Quantum Field Theory*5 of his own, in which the excited "points" of Potential are defined as "Events" or "Occasions". I find it easier to imagine those particular events as actualizations of potential Energy (Causation). Which, depending on ambient conditions, may take on the form of mathematical Mass (graviton?), or tangible Matter (particles). Since I haven't fully digested this theory myself, I'll just mention it in passing, as one more way to imagine the HyloMorph notion.
The bottom line for me is Form (non-physical essence), which is monistic & simplistic in that it has no internal parts, but omnipotential, in that it can transform into both Energy & Matter, and eventually Mind. :nerd:
PS___ Sorry to get so technical & complicated, but I'm still working on a modern scientific equivalent to the ancient notion of HyloMorphism. In my thesis I call it EnFormAction.
*1. Yes, in physics, fields are considered fundamental concepts. They are not just mathematical constructs, but rather represent the underlying reality of how forces and particles interact. In quantum field theory, particles are understood as excitations of these underlying fields.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=physics+field+is+fundamental
Note --- The "excitations" are supposed to be inputs of energy. But where do those pinpricks come from, if the Field is all there is? Stick a pin in a Field, and a bit of Matter pops out.
*2. In the context of quantum field theory (QFT), the term"immaterial" can be misleading. Quantum fields are considered fundamental physical entities, not in the sense of tangible matter, but as the basis for all other physical phenomena. They are not made of anything else, but rather, particles are seen as excitations or disturbances within these fields.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=quantum+field+immaterial
Note --- In my own theory, the Fields are made of Potential, that can transform into Energy or Matter.
*3. In modern physics, particularly within quantum field theory (QFT), matter is fundamentally understood as excitations or manifestations of underlying fields, rather than being comprised of discrete, fundamental particles. These fields are not just mathematical constructs, but are considered the most fundamental aspect of reality, with particles being secondary emergent phenomena.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=physics+matter+is+fundamentally+a+field
Note --- Whence the "excitations"?
*4. [i]In Aristotelian philosophy, "matter" and "potentia" (or potentiality) are closely related concepts. Matter, in this context, refers to the underlying substance that has the potential to take on different forms. Potentia, on the other hand, is the capacity or possibility for something to become actualized. Essentially, matter is the substratum that possesses potential, and potentia is the inherent ability of that matter to change and develop into a specific form. . . . .
Aristotle viewed matter as the fundamental, formless stuff that underlies all physical things.[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=potentia+and+matter
*5. Whitehead's philosophy, particularly his concept of "actual occasions" or "events," offers a framework for interpreting quantum field theory. His process philosophy, emphasizing becoming and relationships, aligns with quantum mechanics' focus on processes and interactions, and his ideas about indeterminacy and creativity resonate with quantum phenomena.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+quantum+field+theory
Parts are what a material object is composed of. I don't think it makes any sense to talk of the parts of an immaterial form. Neither does your argument make any sense.
Quoting Bob Ross
Why not?
Yes. The Substrate (hyle ; wood ; matter) already exists. But the Form (morph) is what converts wood into art. In the image below, notice the hands & mind that impart design (actualizing principle) to the malleable clay. Sans Mind, clay is just mud. :smile:
Aquinas has it that angels and demons are composed in a sense. They have both essence (what they are) and an existence given by God (that they are). This constitutes their "act of existence." These aren't parts in the sense of substrate though.
They have some actuality and some potency. They can learn, turn their attention, will this or that, act here or there, etc. but they cannot grow, decay, or lose form, because they have no matter. They are not subject to generation and corruption. Their form is fixed, they do not change in what they are, but only in how they operate.
For a similar example, there is the human soul, which is immaterial but subject to change, and informed by the body.
But this isn't a part whole relationship, but rather two different principles within an act of existence. Act is received in potency and there is a limiting relationship between potency and act.
Aristotle is quite different in this regard because he hasn't separated out essence and existence. Aristotle complains about the notion of participation in the Metaphysics but Aquinas is able to plumb it more fully and make use of it. All creatures participate in God's being, which alone is subsistent. All actuality is a sort of limiting participation, that occurs according to virtual quantity (qualitative intensity). We don't have an infinite regress because all actuality ultimately traces back to God.
If I remember correctly, God is eternal, and angels are aeviternal. I believe that this means God's existence is completely outside of time, whereas angels have a beginning in time (being created by God), but no end in time.
How do you define a part?
Again, I defined it as something which contributes to the whole but is not identical to it. Nothing about a part in this sense is restricted to something with tangible parts.
Because two ontologically simple things are ontologically indistinguishable from each other.
Yes, and without the form of clay the clay is just fine-grained mineral particles.
How does the idea that they have no matter but pure form not entail that matter is a kind of substrate of pure potentiality?
Likewise, wouldnt there have to be some primitive constituent of matter that everything made of matter is comprised? Wouldnt that primitive constituent be absolutely simple and thusly purely actual (along with God)?
But I dont think Aristotle believed this: this seems more of a Thomist thing. Aristotle just thought that the form of a living-being in virtue of which it is living and unified towards its natural end is the soul. It wasnt some extra immaterial, cartesian-style thing infused with the body or informed by the body.
Interesting. Can you elaborate more on this?
To me, matter in the sense you described it threatens this very claim: matter would imply a basic constituent of material things which comprises them which, in turn, implies fundamental parts that are absolutely simplethey are pure potency infused in some kind of being that will receive the first formand this would entail that there are multiple purely actual beings. What are you thoughts on that?
This is why I was thinking that composed beings must be infinitely divisible AND infused with being from God; because:
1. If a composed being is finitely divisible, then its fundamental part(s) are absolutely simple and two or more absolutely simple beings cannot exist; therefore, since God is absolutely simple every composed being must be infinitely divisible.
2. If composed beings are JUST infinitely divisible (viz., that explains the existence of each), then it wouldnt exist because no member itself with have subsistent existence; therefore, God must be the first cause of the existence of the infinite chain of divisible parts of a given whole.
What do you think?
EDIT:
I am thinking of the chain of causality for a given object like this:
God ? [..., parts of N - 1, parts of N, N]
I don't think it would be possible for:
God ? first parts ? ... ? parts of N - 1 ? parts of N ? N
It would be impossible because the first parts would have to be absolutely simple because they are not made up of two or more parts: there would be nothing more fundamental to that contributes to the whole (of each first part) that isn't identical to it (viz., there would be no parts). Two or more absolutely simple beings cannot exist because they would be ontologically indistiguishable from each other. Therefore, since God is absolutely simple as subsistent being itself, it follows that this kind of causality would imply the contradiction of having at least two absolutely simple beings (namely God and the first parts).
What do you think?
Is humanity a "part" a of man? Is snub-nosedness a part of Socrates, or paleness? If what Socrates is does not explain that he is, would his existence be a separate "part" from his essence?
I think there is a meaningful distinction between principles and parts, and between participation and composition. A circle is not composed of circularity, but circularity inheres in it, for instance. Parts are organizational. They are ordered to an end, and that's a key difference. "Humanity" by contrast, is possessed or participated in, the idea of "limiting essence."
I agree but I don't see how this addresses the issue.
E.g., circularity is not a part of a circle; but the atoms that compose the given circle are; and those atoms are comprised of electrons, neutrons, and protons; ...
We would need to ask: does the stuff that is organized towards the whole and the wholes of those organized things and so on go on infinitely or finitely? My point was that if it is finite, then there is some stuff that comprises the second to last member of the causal chain of composition that has no parts. See what I mean?
I see what you mean. It strikes me that the Five Ways sort of answer this question. There is a good dialogue on them called "Does God Exist?" by Robert Delfino that is pretty good on this. One need not accept the conclusion to see the relevance here. The Second Way shows how the chain ends in terms of hierarchically structured efficient causes (as opposed to accidental linear temporal ordering). Aquinas doesn't think we can know from reason and observation alone that the world has a temporal begining, so the question is open in the horizontal dimension (being closed by revelation), but it ends in God in the vertical dimension.
The First Way shows us an end to the order of motion, the Third shows us an end in the order of necessity, and the Fourth a sort of "first principle of participation." The Fifth Way shows an end in the order of ends. We don't have infinite regresses anywhere here.
The problem of infinite composition would seem to me to involve a sort of materialist presupposition alien to Aristotle or Aquinas (but more alien to the latter), that matter is in some way subsistent and not always referred to another.
An information theoretic example might be helpful here:
Some physicists claim that information is ontologically basic and that matter and energy emerge from it. At the bottom, we get down the the bit, 1 or 0. You cannot get anymore simple. Or can we? We also have the qbit, potentiality between 1 and 0 that resolves into either.
But it would be a mistake to take this position as claiming the cosmos is "composed of bits," a position that is often ridiculed as a misunderstanding. For instance, an electron only carries information at all because it is a difference that makes a difference as measured against a background that is not an electron. As Floridi demonstrates in his Philosophy of Information, a toy universe must have at least some difference to be anything at all (akin to Hegel's point on sheer being in the Logic and sheer sense certainty in the Phenomenology). If the universe is only a point, then obviously a 1 or 0 cannot exist as there is no variance to define the difference. We only miss this because we act as "extra-real observers" sitting outside the toy universe.
So, there might be a sort of "last part" in the form of the bit, but it isn't subsistent, but instead relies on another to be actual, to be anything at all. It isn't a building block. There isn't an infinite regress. We have God at the top, nothingness at the bottom.
Dante's imagery in the Paradiso is helpful here. His material cosmos is Satanocentric. Earth is at the center, the point to which all matter moves, and Satan is at the center of the Earth. This is maximal multiplicity and potency. The sinners at the bottom of Hell and Lucifer are frozen in ice because potency cannot actualize itself because it is ultimately nothing at all. We are in the real of the untinelligible, where being trails off into nothingness.
But in the Paradiso the entire image is inverted. The outermost sphere is actually a dimensionless point, the mind of God "outside" space and time. But all space and time is contained "inside" the point in reality. Creation is like a halo projected from a point, light diffusing in mist. The limit, where the light stops, growing dimmer and dimmer until there is darkness, is just the limit of being. The end of the order is nothingness. As one moves onward, one moves up in the scale of the Transcendentals, Truth, Goodness, Unity, Being.
Exactly! As a part of speech, in our materialistic language, "circularity" is a noun, a thing, an object. Yet Properties (Qualia) are not actually material things, but ideas about things that are attributed to the matter by a sentient observer. Back to the hylomorph example : the hyle is a piece of wood made of non-wood atoms. Together, the system (splintery wood), and its primary components (cellulose molecules), combine with subordinate particles (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen atoms) to appear to us humans as malleable objects that can be shaped into lumber, or paper, or idols.
In the OP, you posited that "If I am right, then it seems like we can get rid of 'matter' (in Aristotle's sense) and retain form (viz., actuality)." But the mindless philosophy of Materialism would deny that possibility. Because, objectively Reality is the objects of perception, that we know via physical senses. Yet, Ideality is the subjects of conception, that we can't point to out there, but only imagine in the mind. Hence, Form*1 is immaterial, not real, and considered unimportant, and perhaps dispensable.
So, I think you have pointed-out the crux of much argument on this forum. Some of us think, impersonally, that only the useful Hyle is worthy of consideration. While others view reality from a personal human perspective, in which the Form (properties, qualia) is all we know about the thing. :smile:
*1. In philosophical contexts, "form" often refers to the essential nature or defining characteristics of a thing, shaping its identity and properties. It's distinct from the physical matter that makes up an object, and understanding a thing's form is crucial for understanding its behavior and properties
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=the+form+is+the+properties+of+a+thing
:up:
I think I get where I was blundering: the fundamental material part would still be comprised of essence and esse, so it would not, in fact, be absolutely simple even if it was not comprised of any other material parts.
I partially agree. I don't think 'form' traditionally refers to some kind of transcendental idealistic 'idea' of a think attributed to it by cognition: it's an integrated actualizing principle of the thing, which is embedded into the thing by a mind.
I guess that conditional agreement depends on which traditions you refer to. Plato was very clear that he considered his Ideal & Universal Forms (e.g. circularity) to be perfect conceptual principles, transcending imperfect material reality*1. But Aristotle was more like a modern scientist in that he preferred to deal with immanent particular Reality.
Ari does philosophize (theorize) in his distinction between Form (morph) and Matter (hyle). Yet, he probably thought of the formal properties of a particular thing as attributions, metaphorically "embedded into the thing" by a mortal mind*2. Plato might wonder though, if those general classifications (circularity vs squarity) are out there in Nature, or imposed on instances by a form-seeking mind.
Over millennia, the term "Atom" referred to tiny fundamental particles of tangible stuff : bits of Prime Matter? But now, the foundational element of physics is defined as an intangible non-local mathematical universal Field (similar to gravity), with localized measurable sub-fields & forces (e.g. electromagnetism). Like Gravity, these fields are invisible & intangible. So like Energy, we infer that they exist only by observing their formal & causal effects on matter. Do we perceive material objects, or do we observe meaningful patterns (Forms), and infer tangible Matter?
For my own purposes, I would reserve the term "Form" for a transcendent universal sense, and use "Prime Matter" in an immanent specific sense : of how humans categorize the various Kinds (elements) of material objects. Both are useful concepts, but PM more for scientific work, and Form for philosophical explorations. :smile:
*1. In Plato's philosophy, the Theory of Forms posits that the physical world is a mere shadow of a higher realm of perfect, eternal, and unchanging Forms or Ideas. While Plato doesn't explicitly equate God with the Forms, his concept of the Form of the Good is often seen as the ultimate source of reality and the origin of all other Forms, bearing strong resemblance to a divine principle. Some interpretations even place the Forms within the mind of God, suggesting a divine intellect that shapes and understands the universe through these perfect archetypes
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=plato+forms+mind+of+god
*2. Form vs Matter :
There is in any case already a considerable controversy at this basic level about what Aristotle means by matter and form: what precisely they are, how they are related to one another, how Aristotle intends to marshal arguments in support of them, and how best to deal with reasonable objections to their metaphysical consequences.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/form-matter/
That's not a very good definition. People contribute to things without being a part of the thing which they contribute to. The contribution itself becomes the part of the whole, not the thing which contributes it, as the person who contributes may remain separate. Furthermore "contribution" is about giving, and it is not even necessary that a part is given, as a thing may take its parts.
Here's the first definition from my OED: "some but not all of a thing, or number of things". Notice that what you call "the whole", is here called "a thing", or "number of things". To me, this implies a material object, or a group of material objects.
Quoting Bob Ross
How do you support this claim? Why can't two ontologically simple things be distinguishable from each other through time and space, like one simple thing here, and another simple thing over there, at the same time? What would make these two things which are clearly distinguishable from each other, by being at different locations at the very same time, necessarily not ontologically simple?
Something being ontologically indistinguishable from another thing entails that they are the same thing because the concept of ontological (as opposed to epistemic) indistinguishability is that there is nothing ontologically different about the two things in question.
But things which are ontologically simple, are not necessarily ontologically indistinguishable.
I don't see why you think that there could not be a multitude of ontologically simple things, which are distinguishable through spatial temporal principles. Why do you think that two ontologically simple things would necessarily be ontologically indistinguishable?
Because they are ontologically absolutely simple; which means they are completely without anything which contributes to the whole but is not identical to the whole. You seem to be referring to a sufficiently simple thing with "ontological simplicity" whereas I am referring to complete and perfect simplicity.
Obviously, I don't understand what you are proposing as "complete and perfect simplicity". If this means "all is one" then obviously there cannot be a multitude of complete and perfect simplicities, because by definition this would all be one.
But that is not what we were talking about. We were talking about being ontologically simple in the sense of being indivisible, And, for the reasons given, I do not see why there cannot be a multitude of ontologically simple (in this sense of being indivisible) things.
So then we do agree that two purely ontologically simple beings are impossible, but the point if contention is that we can refer to something that is impurely simple as being ontologically simple.
I think this is fine in colloquial speech. We say things like "this is circular" even when it is not perfectly circular. However, I am referring to something that is perfectly indivisible by it being ontologically simple. E.g., I am referring to perfect circularity.
You alluded to indivisibility as not requiring perfect simplicity; but this is only partially true. What you are referring to is something which is materially indivisible WHICH DOES NOT make it completely indivisible. If we had one of these simple particles that you are talking about, it would still be comprised of form and matter; and these are parts of it given that a part is something which contributes to the whole but is not identical to it. You would have to define a part differently and then at that point we are disagreeing merely semantically.
No, we do not agree. I think your proposed concept of "complete and perfect simplicity" is incoherent, and itself an impossible, or self contradicting concept. It requires that a multiplicity be one.
Quoting Bob Ross
If "perfectly indivisible" is what you are referring to, then why can there not be more than one of these things? Imagine a point in space. It is perfectly indivisible, but there could be a multitude of different points, each at a different place, at the same time, therefore distinguishable from each other, by having a different place of existence, yet each perfectly indivisible.
How does the concept of something not being a multiplicity entail it is a multiplicity that is one?
For the point in space, assuming it is real, it would be comprised of three parts: location, form, and matter.
Sorry, I don't understand what you're asking here.
Quoting Bob Ross
You can describe the point as having these three parts, but it is still indivisible. Therefore your description is false. Those three, location, matter, and form, refer to concepts, which are not actually parts of the point itself, but concepts used to understand its existence. That is like the "spin" of a virtual particle, it's simply conceptual.
This is a common problem with "divisibility". We often assume that a thing can be divided in a way which it actually can't. This problem comes form the mathematical approach, within which we assume that things can be divided any which way, and infinitely, just like we assume with numbers.. So for instance, we assume that a thing can be divided infinitely when it actually can't. Or we assume that we can make perfectly even halves, and things like that. There are real physical restrictions on division which we do not adequately understand.