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Form, Matter, Substance

Author : Kathrin Koslicki

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Page : 431 pages

File Size : 10,27 MB

Release : 2018-08-22

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 0192557092

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Book Description

In Form, Matter, Substance, Kathrin Koslicki develops a contemporary defense of the Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism. According to this approach, objects are compounds of matter (hule) and form (morphe or eidos) and a living organism is not exhausted by the body, cells, organs, tissue and the like that compose it. Koslicki argues that a hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects is well equipped to compete with alternative approaches when measured against a wide range of criteria of success. However, a plausible application of the doctrine of hylomorphism to the special case of concrete particular objects hinges on how hylomorphists conceive of the matter composing a concrete particular object, its form, and the hylomorphic relations which hold between a matter-form compound, its matter and its form. Koslicki offers detailed answers these questions surrounding a hylomorphic approach to the metaphysics of concrete particular objects. As a result, matter-form compounds emerge as occupying the privileged ontological status traditionally associated with substances due to their high degree of unity.



Aristotle's Theory of Substance

Author : Michael Vernon Wedin

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Page : 497 pages

File Size : 23,80 MB

Release : 2002

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 0199253080

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Book Description

Aristotle's views on the fundamental nature of reality are usually taken to be inconsistent. Two sources for these views are Categories and the central books of Metaphysics. This text argues that he is engaged in different projects in these books.



Aristotle on Substance

Author : Mary Louise Gill

Publisher : Princeton University Press

Page : 308 pages

File Size : 50,70 MB

Release : 1989

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 9780691020709

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Book Description

This book explores a fundamental tension in Aristotle's metaphysics: how can an entity such as a living organisma composite generated through the imposition of form on preexisting matterhave the conceptual unity that Aristotle demands of primary substances? Mary Louise Gill bases her treatment of the problem of unity, and of Aristotle's solution, on a fresh interpretation of the relation between matter and form. Challenging the traditional understanding of Aristotelian matter, she argues that material substances are subverted by matter and maintained by form that controls the matter to serve a positive end. The unity of material substances thus involves a dynamic relation between resistant materials and directive ends. Aristotle on Substance offers both a general account of matter, form, and substantial unity and a specific assessment of particular Aristotelian arguments. At every point, Gill engages Aristotle on his own philosophical ground through the detailed analysis of central, and often controversial, texts from the Metaphysics, Physics, On Generation and Corruption, De Anima, De Caelo, and the biological works. The result is a coherent, firmly grounded rethinking of Aristotle's central metaphysical concepts and of his struggle toward a fully consistent theory of material substances.



Aristotle's Theory of Material Substance

Author : Gad Freudenthal

Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand

Page : 235 pages

File Size : 44,23 MB

Release : 1999-01-01

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 9780198238645

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Book Description

Gad Freudenthal offers an original new account of one of Aristotle's central doctrines, his theory of material substance. Freudenthal argues that Aristotle's concept of heat is a crucial but hitherto ignored part of this account. Aristotle's 'canonical', four-element theory of matter fails to explain the coming-to-be of material substances (the way matter becomes organized) and their persistence (why substances do not disintegrate into their components). Interpreters have highlighted Aristotle's claim that soul is the active cause of the coming-to-be and persistence of living beings. On the basis of dispersed remarks in Aristotle's writings Freudenthal argues that Aristotle in parallel also draws on a comprehensive 'naturalistic' theory, which accounts for material persistence through the concepts of heat, specifically vital heat, and connate pneuma. This theory, which bears also on the higher soul-functions, is central in Aristotle's understanding of the relationship betweenmatter and form, body and soul. Dr Freudenthal aims not only to recover this theory and to highlight its explanatory roles, but also to make suggestions concerning its origin in Presocratic thought and in Aristotle's own early theology. He further offers a brief review of how later ages came to grips with the difficulties inherent in the received version of Aristotle's matter theory. This book is an important contribution to the proper understanding of a central Aristotelian doctrine, which straddles 'chemistry', biology, the theory of soul, and metaphysics. 'This bold and vigorous study contributes greatly to the growing body of work on the essential connections between Aristotle's biology and central issues in his metaphysics and psychology . . . Comprehensive and lucidly argued, this book is strongly recommended for all university and college libraries.' Choice 'The book offers a new and refreshing description of Aristotle's system and demonstrates that withoutunderstanding the basics of Aristotle's biology, his conception of the structure of the physical world cannot be fully understood. The book is carefully and thoughtfully outlined and very well written. For quite a while I have not read a book that contributed so much to my understanding of Aristotle.' Early Science and Medicine



Aquinas's Ontology of the Material World

Author : Jeffrey E. Brower

Publisher :

Page : 350 pages

File Size : 42,48 MB

Release : 2014

Category : History

ISBN : 0198714297

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Book Description

What is the nature of the material world? And how are its fundamental constituents to be described? These questions are of central concern to contemporary philosophers, and in their attempt to answer them, they have begun reconsidering traditional views about metaphysical structure, including the Aristotelian view that material objects are best described as 'hylomorphic compounds'--that is, objects composed of both matter (hyle) and form (morphe). In this major new study, Jeffrey E. Brower presents and explains the hylomorphic conception of the material world developed by Thomas Aquinas, the most influential Aristotelian of the Middle Ages. According to Brower, the key to understanding Aquinas's conception lies in his distinctive account of intrinsic change. Beginning with a novel analysis of this account, Brower systematically introduces all the elements of Aquinas's hylomorphism, showing how they apply to material objects in general and human beings in particular. The resulting picture not only sheds new light on Aquinas's ontology as a whole, but provides a wholesale alternative to the standard contemporary accounts of material objects. In addition to presenting and explaining Aquinas's views, Brower seeks wherever possible to bring them into dialogue with the best recent literature on related topics. Along the way, he highlights the contribution that Aquinas's views make to a host of contemporary metaphysical debates, including the nature of change, composition, material constitution, the ontology of stuff vs. things, the proper analysis of ordinary objects, the truthmakers for essential vs. accidental predication, and the metaphysics of property possession.



The Structure of Objects

Author : Kathrin Koslicki

Publisher : OUP Oxford

Page : 539 pages

File Size : 32,41 MB

Release : 2008-04-17

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 0191609137

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Book Description

Kathrin Koslicki offers an analysis of ordinary materials objects, those material objects to which we take ourselves to be committed in ordinary, scientifically informed discourse. She focuses particularly on the question of how the parts of such objects are related to the wholes which they compose. Many philosophers today find themselves in the grip of an exceedingly deflationary conception of what it means to be an object. According to this conception, any plurality of objects, no matter how disparate or gerrymandered, itself composes an object, even if the objects in question fail to exhibit interesting similarities, internal unity, cohesion, or causl interaction amongst each other. This commitment to initially counterintuitive objects follows from the belief that no principled set of criteria is available by means of which to distinguish intuitively gerrymandered objects from commonsensical ones; the project of this book is to persuade the reader that systematic principles can be found by means of which composition can be restricted, and hence that we need not embrace this deflationary approach to the question of what it means to be an object. To this end, a more full-blooded neo-Aristotelian account of parthood and composition is developed according to which objects are structured wholes: it is integral to the existence and identity of an object, on this conception, that its parts exhibit a certain manner of arrangement. This structure-based conception of parthood and composition is explored in detail, along with some of its historical precursors as well as some of its contemporary competitors.



Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar

Author : Ross D. Inman

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 447 pages

File Size : 18,28 MB

Release : 2017-12-14

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 1351660047

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Book Description

Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar explicates and defends a novel neo-Aristotelian account of the structure of material objects. While there have been numerous treatments of properties, laws, causation, and modality in the neo-Aristotelian metaphysics literature, this book is one of the first full-length treatments of wholes and their parts. Another aim of the book is to further develop the newly revived area concerning the question of fundamental mereology, the question of whether wholes are metaphysically prior to their parts or vice versa. Inman develops a fundamental mereology with a grounding-based conception of the structure and unity of substances at its core, what he calls substantial priority, one that distinctively allows for the fundamentality of ordinary, medium-sized composite objects. He offers both empirical and philosophical considerations against the view that the parts of every composite object are metaphysically prior, in particular the view that ascribes ontological pride of place to the smallest microphysical parts of composite objects, which currently dominates debates in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind. Ultimately, he demonstrates that substantial priority is well-motivated in virtue of its offering a unified solution to a host of metaphysical problems involving material objects.



Being, Essence and Substance in Plato and Aristotle

Author : Paul Ricoeur

Publisher : Polity

Page : 0 pages

File Size : 37,4 MB

Release : 2013-09-03

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 9780745660547

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Book Description

Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was one of the outstanding French philosophers of the 20th century and his work is widely read in the English-speaking world. This unique volume comprises the lectures that Ricoeur gave on Plato and Aristotle at the University of Strasbourg in 1953-54. The aim of these lectures is to analyse the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle and to discern in their work the ontological foundations of Western philosophy. The relation between Plato and Aristotle is commonly portrayed as a contrast between a philosophy of essence and a philosophy of substance, but Ricoeur shows that this opposition is too simple. Aristotelian ontology is not a simple antithesis to Platonism: the radical ontology of Aristotle stands in a far more subtle relation of continuity and opposition to that of Plato and it is this relation we have to reconstruct and understand. Ricoeur’s lectures offer a brilliant analysis of the great works of Plato and Aristotle which has withstood the test of time. They also provide a unique insight into the development of Ricoeur’s thinking in the early 1950s, revealing that, even at this early stage of his work, Ricoeur was focused sharply on issues of language and the text.



Substance

Author : Joshua Hoffman

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 248 pages

File Size : 46,55 MB

Release : 2002-02-07

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 1134831358

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Book Description

Substance has been a leading idea in the history of Western philosophy. Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz explain the nature and existence of individual substances, including both living things and inanimate objects. Specifically written for students new to this important and often complex subject, Substance provides both the historical and contemporary overview of the debate. Great Philosophers of the past, such as Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Locke, and Berkeley were profoundly interested in the concept of substance. And, the authors argue, a belief in the existence of substances is an integral part of our everyday world view. But what constitutes substance? Was Aristotle right to suggest that artefacts like tables and ships don't really exist? Substance: Its Nature and Existence is one of the first non-technical, accessible guides to this central problem and will be of great use to students of metaphysics and philosophy.



Substance and Essence in Aristotle

Author : Charlotte Witt

Publisher : Cornell University Press

Page : 217 pages

File Size : 34,89 MB

Release : 2018-05-31

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 1501711512

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Book Description

Substance and Essence in Aristotle is a close study of Aristotle's most profound—and perplexing—treatise: Books VII-IX of the Metaphysics. These central books, which focus on the nature of substance, have gained a deserved reputation for their difficulty, inconclusiveness, and internal inconsistency. Despite these problems, Witt extracts from Aristotle's text a coherent and provocative view about sensible substance by focusing on Aristotle's account of form or essence. After exploring the context in which Aristotle's discussion of sensible substance takes place, Witt turns to his analysis of essence. Arguing against the received interpretation, according to which essences are classificatory, Witt maintains that a substance's essence is what causes it to exist. In addition, Substance and Essence in Aristotle challenges the orthodox view that Aristotelian essences are species-essences, defending instead the controversial position that they are individual essences. Finally, Witt compares Aristotelian essentialism to contemporary essentialist theories, focusing in particular on Kripke's work. She concludes that fundamental differences between Aristotelian and contemporary essentialist theories highlight important features of Aristotle's theory and the philosophical problems and milieu that engendered it.