Substantial form
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Substantial form is a central philosophical concept in
This concept was designed by
Aristotle's doctrine of substantial form animating prime matter differs from Plato's theory of forms in several ways. Unlike substantial forms, Platonic forms or ideas exist as exemplars in the invisible world and are imposed by a supreme god (Demiurge in some translations of the Timaeus) upon chaotic matter. Physical things thus only participate to some degree in the perfection of Plato's paradigmatic Forms. Aristotle, on the other hand, holds that substantial forms actualize the potency of prime matter made receptive by agents of change. The chick's substantial form actualizes prime matter that has been individualized into being a receptive potency for the chicken substantial form by the hen and the rooster.
While the concept of substantial forms dominates ancient Greek philosophy and medieval philosophy, it fell out of favor in modern philosophy.[2] Modern philosophy was changed by the discovery of nature's mathematical and mechanical laws. So, the idea of substantial forms was abandoned for a mechanical, or "bottom-up" theory of organization.[3] Each substance being in its nature fixed and determined, nothing is farther from the spirit of Aristotelianism or Scholasticism than a theory of evolution which would regard even the essences of things as products of change. However, such mechanistic treatments have been criticized by proponents of Neo-Scholasticism for merely denying the existence of certain kinds of substantial forms in favor of others (for example that of atoms) and not denying substantial forms as such.
Articulation
Platonic forms
Plato maintains in the Phaedo regarding our knowledge of equals:
- Do they [equal things] seem to us to be equal in the same sense as what is Equal itself? Is there some deficiency in their being such as the Equal, or is there not? ...
- Whenever someone, on seeing something, realizes that that which he now sees wants to be like some other reality but falls short and cannot be like that other since it is inferior, do we agree that the one who thinks this must have prior knowledge of that to which he says it is like, but deficiently so? ...
- We must then possess knowledge of the Equal before that time when we first saw the equal objects and realized that all these objects strive to be like the Equal but are deficient in this.
Aristotelian forms
Early adoption
Both Platonic and Aristotelian forms appear in medieval philosophy.
Medieval theologians, newly exposed to Aristotle's philosophy, applied hylomorphism to Christianity, such as to the transubstantiation of the Eucharist's bread and wine to the body and blood of Jesus. Theologians such as Duns Scotus developed Christian applications of hylomorphism.
The Aristotelian conception of form was adopted by the
Criticism
Descartes, referring to substantial forms, says:
They were introduced by philosophers solely to account for the proper action of natural things, of which they were supposed to be the principles and bases ... But no natural action at all can be explained by these substantial forms, since their defenders admit that they are occult, and that they do not understand them themselves. If they say that some action proceeds from a substantial form, it is as if they said it proceeds from something they do not understand; which explains nothing.[5]
Response to criticism
Leibniz made efforts to return to forms. Substantial forms, in the strictest sense for Leibniz, are primitive active forces and are required for his metaphysics.[6][7] In the Discourse on Metaphysics (§10):
[...] the belief in substantial forms has a certain basis in fact, but that these forms effect no changes in the phenomena and must not be employed for the explanation of particular events.[8]
References
- ^ "Greek Philosophy" entry in Seyffert 1895, p. 482
- ^ David Banach. What Killed Substantial Form?
- ^ Benjamin Hill. Substantial Forms and the Rise of Modern Science
- ^ public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Form". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Descartes. "Letter to Regius," January 1642, in Oeuvres de Descartes.
- ^ Adams, Robert Merrihew. Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, February 1999, pp. 308–341 (34)
- ^ Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- ^ G W Leibniz. "Discourse on Metaphysics". Archived from the original on 12 June 2002.