On Hylemorphism

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

Gen. 2:7

Order of Contents

Intro
Generally
. Matter
. Form
Body & Soul
Brain & Intellect
Latin

Intro

Hylemorphism means “matter-form” and refers to the Aristotelian categories that things are metaphysically made of a combination of matter and form. This was by and large the view of Reformed Orthodoxy before the winds of change arose with Cartesianism (especially, in the late-1600’s).

Reformed Orthodoxy, in Aristotelian fashion, largely held that the soul is simply the form of a human person. It is our belief that this is by far and away the most accurate view of the body-soul relationship, and does the most justice to both the Biblical and natural data. Study the resources below to find out why.

On Hylemorphism Generally

Beginner

Article

Feser, Edward – ‘Aristotle’s Metaphysics’ in The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 2008), pp. 49-74

Aristotle’s Metaphysics 49
. A. Actuality & Potentiality 52
. B. Form & Matter 57
. C. The Four Causes 62-74

Intermediate to Advanced

Articles

Feser, Edward

Scholastic Metaphysics Buy (Editiones Scholasticae, 2014), ch. 3, ‘Substance’

3.1 Hylemorphism 177
3.1.1 Form & Matter 177
3.1.2 Substantial form versus accidental form 181
3.1.3 Prime matter versus secondary matter 189
3.1.4 Aquinas versus Scotus and Suarez 194
3.1.5 Hylemorphism versus atomism 196
3.1.6 Anti-reductionism in contemporary analytic metaphysics 204-10

‘Hylemorphism’ in Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature Ref (Editiones Scholastica, 2024), ch. 5, ‘Matter’, pp. 173-89

eds. Simpson, Koons & Teh, Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science Pre (London: Routledge, 2018)

Austin, Christopher J. – ch. 8, ‘A Biologically Informed Hylomorphism’, pp. 185-211

De Haan, Daniel D. – ch. 12, ‘Hylomorphism & the New Mechanist Philosophy in Biology, Neuroscience & Psychology’, pp. 293-327

Book

Evnine, Simon J. – Making Objects & Events: A Hylomorphic Theory of Artifacts, Actions & Organisms Pre (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016) ToC

Historical

In Non-Western Traditions

Article

Setia, Adi – ‘Atomism versus Hylomorphism in the Kalam of al-Fakhr al-Din al-Razi: A Preliminary Survey of the Matalib al-Aliyya’ Islam & Science, vol. 4, no. 2 (Winter, 2006), pp. 113-40

Abstract: “Hylomorphism (theory of matter and form) and atomism (theory of atoms and accidents) have been the two main Islamic physical theories attempting to account for the structure of the world, the former defended by the philosophers (faldsifah) and the other by the theologians (mutakallimun). Among the most articulate, erudite and effective defender of atomism is the formidable, 6th/12th century mutakallim, Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi. Here, his geometrical arguments for atomism are presented along with an explanation as to why the mutakallimun as a whole, even until today, are so committed to atomism and occasionalism.”

Book

Rooney, James Dominic – Material Objects in Confucian & Aristotelian Metaphysics: the Inevitability of Hylomorphism Pre (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022) 200 pp. ToC

Quote

Edward Feser, Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholasticae, 2024), ch. 5, ‘Matter’, p. 173, fn. 304

“When I say that these [hylemorphism, the mechanical philosophy and contemporary physics] have historically been the three most influential and well-developed views, I primarily have in mind the history of Western philosophy and science. The topic has, of course, also been addressed in non-Western philosophy. But the main views developed in the non-Western traditions seem to parallel the views taken in the West.

For example, something like hylemorphism has been defended in the history of Chinese philosophy, and atomism has been influential in the history of Indian philosophy. On the former, see James Dominic Rooney, Material Objects in Confucian and Aristotelian Metaphysics: the Inevitability of Hylomorphism (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). On the latter, see ahotra Sarkar, “Aggregates versus Wholes: an Unresolved Debate between the Nyaya-Vaisesika and Buddhist Schools in Ancient Indian Atomism,” in Ugo Zilioli, ed., Atomism in Philosophy: A History from Antiquity to the Present (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).”

On Aquinas

Brower, Jeffrey E. – Aquinas’s Ontology of the Material World: Change, Hylomorphism & Material (Oxford Univ. Press, 2014) 315 pp. ToC

On Matter

Articles

2000’s

Feser, Edward

Scholastic Metaphysics Buy (Editiones Scholasticae, 2014), ch. 3, ‘Substance’

3.1.1 Form & Matter 177-81
…
3.1.3 Prime matter versus secondary matter 189-94

ch. 5, ‘Matter’ in Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature Ref (Editiones Scholastica, 2024), pt. 2, ‘What is the Body?’, pp. 172-210

On Forms

Articles

2000’s

Feser, Edward – Scholastic Metaphysics Buy (Editiones Scholasticae, 2014), ch. 3, ‘Substance’

3.1.1 Form & Matter 177
3.1.2 Substantial form versus accidental form 181-89

Book

2000’s

eds. Jansen, Ludger & Petter Sandstad – Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Formal Causation Pre (Routledge, 2021) 287 pp. ToC

Quote

Gisbert Voet

‘On the Natures of Things & Substantial Forms’, pp. 369-76 in Select Theological Disputations, vol. 1, pt. 2 tr. by AI by Onku (Utrecht: Johannes a Waesberg, 1648), ‘On Creation’, pt. 8 Latin

“On the Natures of Things & Substantial Forms

1. We do not introduce these things to the students so that they will all now immediately necessarily believe in forms with their appendices, or contend tooth and nail for them, but so that they may at least for a time abstain from a peremptory judgment and its execution, by which the miserable and innocent beings are cast down from their ancient possession, until they have learned thoroughly, if not most accurately, at least moderately the philosophy of the schools, specifically logic, metaphysics, physics and these few notes which we subjoin, having been solidly determined, and they see that they are satisfied in them.

However they will finally judge, we will not have wasted our labor if in the meantime we will have recalled them from a fierce contempt and flight of the philosophical study, moreover from an idiotic rustic and proud ignorance, so that at least it could sometime be said concerning those dissenting elsewhere what is boasted among the Arabs: A wise man when he errs, errs with learned error.

Moreover our notes are threefold: 1. Certain prejudgments which I [approvingly] suggest to the disputants. 2. Reasons for forms, which are to be clearly solved. 3. Reasons against forms and for those vicarious accidents which certain more recent [mechanical] authors wish to be substituted for forms, which forms and their doubts, with their principles and consequences, are fittingly to be defended.

2. The notes of the first kind are:

I. Let them consider whether they satisfy themselves in the reconciliation of this opinion [of forms] with sacred scripture. For it indeed harmonizes with truth: and Christian philosophers will profess learned ignorance a thousand times rather than that they bring even the least appearance of prejudice to divine truth. See Gen. 1:11, 21-22, 24-25; Prov. 30:24-27, where we think permanent natures, faculties and distinct species of things are implied.

II. It is to be seen whether from the denying opinion there would be at least an easier lapse than from the affirming into doubt. [Put the question forth:] Whether there are any substantial forms which actuate the body of man and constitute one composite with it? But if someone denies this, and substitutes the krasin of Galen, or a particle of divine breath or soul of the world, or the universal intellect of Averroes, or the mind of Plato, thrust into the workshop of the body as a genial pipor and bound to it, as Prometheus the Caucasian, if someone I say substitutes such a thing, by what reasons would you more successfully and safely rebut him than [those by which] the assertors of forms [do].

III. It is to be seen how with this opinion standing the distinction between the being of substance and of accident can be conveniently explained and defended. For there would be, according to them, no substantial difference between a wolf, a sheep, a whale, an elephant, a serpent, a stone, a monk’s hood, aconite, wheat, the sun, the moon, the earth; add also a clock, the wooden Trojan horse, the bronze bull of Phalaris, the flying dove of Archytas, the bronze head of Pope Sylvester, the speaking statue of Albertus Magnus, a house, a chair, a garment etc.

But perhaps they would retort that those substances differ essentially through those five accidents motion, rest, position, figure and quantity.

I respond: Granting this to be so (about which we do not now dispute), the difficulty is nevertheless not removed by this escape. It nevertheless remains [on this view] that substances are distinguished from substances in no other way than accidents from substances and accidents among themselves, for both the former and the latter are distinguished by accidents.

IV. It is to be seen whether from here there is not an easier lapse, when someone is pressed by reasons and consequences into this absurd [occasionalist] opinion: ‘Secondary causes endowed with their own causality are not given, but only the first and universal cause acts in the presence and disposition of secondary causes.’ See the absurdity of this opinion shown by the Scholastics and more recent metaphysicians and theologians in the topic on Providence, on the concourse of God with creatures. Let the consequences [of their position], by which they could be pressed, be these:

1. That the concourse of God is not given, nor the motion of the first mover accommodated to the natures and properties of secondary causes, whether they are necessary or contingent.

2. That there is not in created substances an intrinsic mover and a substantial principle of internal and proper motion: for the disposition of the mobile thing to motion from quantity, figure, position is not the activity or causality of the efficient cause, but only a required condition, and a cause sine qua non (‘without which nothing’).

3. Consequently, since no mobile thing can move itself in potency to act or determine itself to motion, it remains that some external mover is to be sought which may lead the potency into act. But what will they give here? The Platonic-Virgilian soul of the world, or intelligences, or God, or atoms, or celestial globules. Here something will have to be said [by them].

V. It is to be seen lest the negation of proper qualities, which internally emanate from the form and substance of a thing (the negation of which follows the negation of forms, just as one error drags another), drive us into these absurdities:

1. That created substances are the immediate principle of their own operation, since there are no active qualities by which substances operate as a means: which see shaken out by the metaphysicians and theologians when they treat of the simplicity of God and of the distinction of the divine attributes.

2. That there are no qualities altogether, as neither of the second, or third, so also not of the first species; that is, there are no habits, against the common school of philosophers and theologians. I would like to see how those who deny natural faculties or powers will vindicate habits against the atheists, skeptics and infidels (the necessity of which Scripture and reason persuades), lest they be likewise shut up in that pentagon-workshop of motion, rest, quantity, position and figure.

VI. From this opinion it follows that no definitions of substances are given, since there are no forms or proper first and internal essentials from which the difference can be taken. How this may savor to the sons of the logicians of whatever sect, and to all acroamatic minds, and to the professors of whatever disciplines, they themselves will see.

VII. This absurdity also follows: That all created substances, even man himself (and why not angels and separate souls?), are beings per accidens [through accident], collective and aggregate: but not essences or natures, one per se [through itself]. So that no essence seems to be per se, except perhaps atoms, or ethereal globules, or insensible particles, or Platonic ideas (which he called αυτοάνθρωπον, αυτοίππον, etc.) or chimeras buzzing in the void, etc. But that man ought to be called a being and one per se, we will teach below.

VIII. It would follow that there are no proper and intrinsic faculties, nor are their principles in animals of another kind than in automata or Daedalean statues; and consequently the works of God and nature produced through creation or generation are essentially and univocally the same with works of art: which how it may agree well enough with Ps. 104:29; 7:14-15; Num. 16:22; 27:16; Heb. 11:9-10; Hab. 2:19, I confess I do not see the knot.

IX. It would follow that there is no generation or corruption of natural things. But more on this in Thesis 4 [below].

X. Since efficiency and motion, which is usually attributed to forms and their active qualities, is attributed to quantity and figure, it is to be seen lest young men at some time imprudently admit through consequence that magical axiom rejected by all Christian theology and philosophy: “There is some efficacy of quantity and figure, and it either per se or with others things concurs as an active principle of transmutation.”

XI. This doubt is to be solved: How is it not a process to infinity, or a circular demonstration nearly similar to the demonstration which that chanted-off black faith of the Papists pretends? So it may amount to the same as to that: Why is the earth moved ex. gr. R.? Because its site, position, figure so move it. And why do they so move, and whence is this? whether from atoms, or from ethereal globules etc. But if you say this, I ask again, the world of atoms, or globules, how is it moved, and why? You bear so far and it returns to the [same] way.

XII. The reproach of this [mechanical] opinion, as if it is omniscient, is to be removed: “That it [the theory of forms] explains or solidly demonstrates much less than the opposite [mechanical] opinion, indeed nothing in the secrets of nature.” In general indeed and indefinitely it says that natural effects are from that five-fold reason of accidents which any dancers could be taught in the space of one or another little hour: but it explains or proves neither in species nor in an individual determinately about celestial things and motions, about those which are in the bowels of the earth, in the depth of the sea, in the internal motions of bodies, about those, I say, which have thus far lain hidden from other investigators of nature. But more on this in Thesis 4 following.

3. The reasons which are usually brought forward by the assertors of forms must first be thoroughly known, then clearly and solidly solved. To this end some one of the more recent physical or metaphysical disputators should be read accurately by the juniors, such as [Francis] Suarez, [Benedict] Pererius, [Jacob] Revius, [Francisco de] Toledo, the [Jesuit] Conimbricenses, the [Spanish] Complutenses [at Alcala], [Rodrigo de] Arriaga, [Francisco de] Mendoza, etc. Out of all these Suarez most fully and most subtly pleads this cause. For the present we will defend these three reasons:

The first reason is taken from the proper actions of natural things, which emanate each from their distinct perfections and qualities: Moreover those perfections perfect some nature and substance. Hence it is inferred that in any composite there is given one principle and root of all powers and operations, which is not matter (which is common), nor accidents, which cannot be the ultimate principle; therefore it remains that it is nothing other than the form.

The second reason: There is given some first root and first concept of each entity, e.g. of humanity, equinity, etc. which constitutes the thing in its proper being and distinguishes it essentially from others. But that is not matter, since it is common, nor any accidents, because they cannot compose or constitute a substance and give entity to it: Therefore it is that which we call form, eido, tò** en eina* entelekeian, ‘I hold the perfected nature according to [Greek]’ (since it actuates and informs matter, and with it constitutes the composite).

The third reason: We gather this from substantial corruption. The essence of man, horse, dog, etc. is taken away [in death], so that according to Scripture and natural reason they are said not to be. But here matter has not ceased to be, since it is ungenerable and incorruptible: therefore form [exists], by which it happens that [without it] the composite is dissolved, and becomes a non-being, namely, this thing, e.g. horse, dog, etc. But if someone says that through destruction only a change of accidents happens, we retort: then a dead man, lion, dog, etc. differs accidentally and not substantially from a living one, no more than a sick Socrates differs from a healthy one, a sitting one from a standing one, a learned one from an unlearned one, an old man from a boy. We will dissolve other objections which [Sebastian] Basson [d. 1621, an anti-Aristotelian], bk. 3, opposes in the presence of the disputation.

4. The reasons which are usually brought forward against forms must be demonstrated philosophically in such a way that they compel the intellect desirous of truth and make it rest. That this has by no means been done thus far we will now defend according to our ability:

I. The reason, and indeed the chief and Achillean one [of opponents] is: Because the origin, or mode of origin of forms cannot be explained or so demonstrated that no difficulty remains.

I respond: I do not repeat our response to the major of this argument and its consequence, which we intimated in the corollary, but I again take it up to be defended, with this caution added: If the more imprudent young men do not cease to wander on that string and support the overthrow and mockery of the whole sound and sober philosophy with such a ruinous and rotten prop, they are to be driven at last through solid consequences to that point that they become either beasts or atheists. But see our corollary.

Moreover that this was the Achillean argument of the denying opinion is clear from Gorlaeus, Exercit. 14, p. 267 and Basson, bk. 1, intent. 3-4, where having premised this argument, he concludes (p. 159, line 3, p. 161 compared with the index under the word ‘form’) that there are no substantive forms and the ancients could have easily shown in what way, from which and out of which forms are made, for they said that the soul and form of each thing is an instrument and consists in a certain composition and proportion of the parts of the thing.

Furthermore on the difficulties and manifold disquisition of the philosophers, so that they may explain the mode of origin of forms, consult besides Basson, bk. 3, loc. cit., especially Sennert, Hypomnem. physicor. 1. ch. 3; Suarez, disp. metaph. 15.

II. The second reason is that which Gorlaeus intimates: That beings are not to be multiplied without necessity, when the effects of natural things can be sufficiently explained through other principles and reduced to them. But they do not explain those principles in one way. For the ancients, whom Basson praises, and Aristotle refutes l. 2. Axpo, explain it otherwise, the more recent authors otherwise: although very many opinions agree in some one common thing, which being denied or refuted, they themselves also fall.

We will not now dig up the rancid and long exploded opinions of both the ancients and the more recent Paracelsists, Hermetics (which Dornavius has tried in vain to reconcile with the sacred Scriptures), but we only ask that it be demonstrated: that which emerged today or yesterday [the mechanical philosophy], stating that all things are derived from quantity, figure, site or position, motion and rest, and that all the secrets of nature can be best explained and demonstrated through them; which we deny. These reasons are brought forward:

First, as a clock is moved by the mere disposition of its parts, through quantity, figure, etc. so also natural things: But the former is true; Therefore also the latter.

We deny the major and the minor. To the proof of the minor and other instances besides we say that a clock well disposed and fitted nevertheless is not actually moved without an external mover, namely the hand of a man, or its vicar, the depression and traction of a weight: in the way a harpsichord, lyre or cither optimally disposed and fitted for song does not actually sing without an external moving accident, namely the hand of the artist, as also mills optimally disposed do not actually grind without the external impulse or traction of water, wind, horse or ass, etc.

We add now that hydraulic organs or harpsichords do not actually sound without the motion or pulse of water in subterranean tubes; and yet that water cannot be said to be a part of the organ, much less its internal mover.

The second reason: Because the heart of an animal is moved by the mere disposition of the parts R. it is moved by the soul or informing form, by means of qualities as quo principles, and other instruments required for animal motion.

Instance: but the motion of the heart can be diminished, nay even completely cease or be taken away, even with the animal living [or moving for a time]: therefore it is not from the soul. For if indeed the heart moving were from the soul, assuredly with that soul present [in the body], the motion would be present.

I respond: The consequence of the major is denied. It is a reasoning from the rational soul, and yet it is absent from the infant recently born, although the rational soul is not absent. Thus granted that the motion of the heart ceases in a living animal, nevertheless it does not follow from that that the soul or form is not the principle of that motion. For the fact that the motion is either diminished or ceases, that is from the organs and from the impeded faculty.

Instance 2: If that form were the principle of motion, and used qualities and instruments for it, then it would follow that that form uses reason or ratiocination.

I respond: The consequence is denied, because forms operate through natural faculties without ratiocination; thus animals by natural instinct, nay even vegetables, flee harmful things and pursue what is agreeable to them; thus e.g. the swallow without the use of reason, with applied celandine, heals the eyes of its chicks; and our stomach, liver, etc. concoct, nor are they subject to the direction of reason.

We add that a stone falls downward, stars rise, finally all natural things perform their motions without reasons, for thus they have been created by God and tend to their ends according to the faculties impressed on them, just as an arrow to the target. See the Metaphysicians disputing on the final cause.

To the minor of the syllogism it is responded: Concerning the diminution of the motion of the heart it is conceded that it happens, but then there is no species of consequence, since a diminished motion is also [by degree] a motion. A total cessation of motion is not conceded, but this is deferred to the experience of physicians. But who has experienced this, is not clear. And what if someone at some time perceives none of its motion extrinsically; for that reason it must not be said that there is no motion within or without. For it can easily be retorted that the motion is insensible, as some state concerning the systole in the pulse.

And indeed these reasons have been aired thus far. That the same may be urged so much the better anew, and others may hereafter be added, we have written this appendix.

5. In place of a consectary, we add something about all hidden [or obscure] qualities: That the opinion of philosophers and physicians is not to be rashly rejected:

I. Because it agrees better with learned ignorance (about which we will sometime, God willing, treat professionally): than the opposite opinion, which seems to breathe and promise pansophy [complete wisdom], and indeed without difficulty, which cannot fail to be suspect. See meanwhile the sayings of Scripture Job 38-39; 26; 42; Eccl. 1; Ps. 29.

II. Because the hidden qualities, which sagacious investigators of nature have objected to them to be explained, have not yet been explained by them. See I pray Sennert on the consensus of chemists with Aristotle, ch. 8, especially Hypomnem Phys. 2. And if they try to explain any (which however rarely happens), they bring forward inept and ridiculous reasons, or deny those things which have even been confirmed by experience, as the most erudite Sennert speaks of in the same place. But although they are not properly of our forum, yet because they spread the train of consequences too much to the exploding of the whole philosophy, we will now for our capacity and for the sake of exercise defend that poisons, hydrophobia, the contagion of plague, nay not even the magnet can be explained by them through motion, rest, position, quantity and figure.

Problem: Why are certain men so affected [with allergies] by the presence of cats (which they themselves are unaware of), that they almost suffer syncope, others, if they unknowingly eat a particle of cheese [with unseen mold], are so moved that from it they sometimes contract a serious and dangerous disease for themselves?
…

7. In Corollary 1 I had said that the opinion of Taurellus and Gorlaeus about man as a being per accidens stumbles in many ways. The argument by which they are moved is such. Two beings or complete substances make one per accidens and not per se: but the body and soul of man are two complete substances. Therefore.

I respond: The major is not universally true; and the minor is denied. That in the presence of the disputation itself it may be aired to many and to the end, we now cursorily indicate these hypotheses:

1. That man is a species of substance and animal created into one essence or nature from soul and body, we think is implied in Gen. 3:7, 1 Cor. 15:45, compared with Gen. 1:26-27.

II. Christ-Theanthropos [God-man] (in whom there are two natures or complete substances) is one per se and not per accidens: for the union of natures was made into one suppositum, [Greek]. See the theologians on the person of Christ: Much more therefore substantially and per se the union was made between the soul and body of man, which indeed are not so far distant, nor are they such complete substances as divinity and humanity.

III. The true human nature of Christ would not be more one substance through itself than in the death of the same
…
[These articles are about Christ, man, the soul and angels]
…

IX. This opinion even impinges on many metaphysical dogmas…

1. Concerning being, essence and existence, nature and suppositum.

2. Concerning one, composition by union, whole, and concerning per se and per accidens.

3. Concerning principles and causes, specifically concerning univocal and equivocal cause, concerning internal and external principle, concerning informing and assisting form.

4. Concerning the distinction between substantial and accidental, concerning the distinction of a natural thing from an artificial one, concerning the distinction of a monster (which as such is a being per accidens) from human nature duly constituted according to the laws of nature.

5. That man is not a substance nor does he directly pertain to the predication of substance: but only indirectly, and per accidens is referred to it, since he is a being per accidens and collective.

6. That one man is no more one per se, than an army, a city, etc. where there are many men collectively.

7. That consequently man cannot be defined by an essential and perfect definition.

8. That the matter and form of a composite are properly matter, and its form is the union, that is an accident, or pure mode, namely a relation. See Gorlaeus, Exercit. 14, p. 266.

9. That the union of the human soul with its body is to be sought in some mere accident from those five, and indeed in position or posture: as some seem to concede.

10. That the body is not the nature of man, but only his instrument, through which the soul existing in the body operates.

…
9. In place of an epimeter, let these notes be about the invention, constitution and augmentation of the sciences:

I. Not to want to use and enjoy things well invented and well constituted, but to want to invent them anew per se or other things in their place is to multiply beings without necessity, and to do injury to talent and erudition: since art is long, life is short, experience is fallacious.

II. Students in the academic course are not so much occupied with observations and experiences as with the perception and impression of things invented: And thus with Aristotle, Metaph. 1. ch. 1. I would prefer a learned and non-expert student to an unlearned and expert one. If however experience [Greek] can be joined to doctrine [Greek] (which happens here), I would certainly judge that academy most happy.

III. Fallacious and useless is that method of inventing and constituting the sciences, so he:

1. unlearns, forgets, rejects and as it were abjures all universal experiences, all inventions, all dogmas examined and proven through so many ages by the whole chorus of the wise, through new and repeated experiences, through the most subtle reciprocations of arguments: with the hope in course of a new and better philosophy to be invented by himself or others.

2. Perpetually adheres to one or another experience about one thing or about one natural effect of one thing, and sells such a tiny particle for genuine philosophy: the whole philosophy and common experience, at least by far more frequent than his own and indeed about all or most natural things, beening held in contempt.

3. Often builds such unhappy consequences upon that narrow experience and is compelled to fabricate uncertain, slippery, insufficiently proven principles, axioms, definitions and demonstrations from it, or to desert security.”

Historical

On the Post-Reformation

Goudriaan, Aza – 3.2 ‘Substantial Forms’ in ch. 2, ‘Creation, Mosaic Physics, Copernicanism & Divine Accommodation’ in Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625-1750 : Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen Pre (Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 113-125

On Hylemorphism as the Relationship between Body & Soul

Order of Contents

Intro 1
Articles 4
Quotes 9
Historical 1

Intro

Feser, Edward – ‘The Soul’ in The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 2008), ch. 4, pp. 120-32

Feser is an analytical Thomist philosopher and is here arguing against a few of the “new atheists”.

Articles

1200’s

Aquinas, Thomas

Summa, pt. 1, q. 75, art. 2, 3, 6

Thomas is accurate and excellent on this issue.

Contra Gentiles, bk. 2

1600’s

Perkins, William – sect. 1, ‘The Body / Soul Relationship’ in The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience… (d. 1602; Cambridge: Legat, 1606), bk. 1, ch. 9

Owen, John – pp. 228 (bot) – 229 in ch. 18, ‘The Nature of the Person of Christ…’ in Christologia in Works (NY: Robert Carter, 1850), vol. 1

2000’s

Oderberg, David S. – ‘Hylemorphic Dualism’ in eds. Paul, Miller & Paul, Personal Identity Pre (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 70-100

Oderberg is a Thomist philosopher.

Feser, Edward – ch. 11, ‘The Form of the Body’ in Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature Ref (Editiones Scholastica, 2024), pp. 493-523 See especially, ‘Hylemorphic Dualism’, pp. 505-10.

“…hylemorphic dualism… takes a human being to be, not a composite of two distinct substances, but one substance with both incorporeal and corporeal operations. And the incorporeal incomplete substance that is the soul is related to the body not as an efficient cause but as its formal cause. Their relationship is as intimate as that between the form and matter of a stone, a tree, or a dog, which is why we experience the body as part of us rather than as some instrument extrinsic to us. Soul and body do not ‘interact’ any more than the substantial form of a stone and the matter that makes up the stone interact.

Hence there is no ‘problem’ of explaining how they interact. An ‘interaction problem’ can arise only if, like Descartes, one misconceives them as two distinct substances related by efficient causation.” – p. 508

Quotes

Order of

Calvin
Beza
Zanchi
Perkins
Polanus
Voet
Essenius
Rogers
Mastricht

1500’s

John Calvin

Commentary on Zech. 12:1

“Nor is it yet a small matter when he adds, that God had formed the spirit of man; for we know that we live; the body of itself would be without any strength or motion, were it not endued with life; and the soul which animates the body is invisible…

By saying “in the midst of him”, he means, that the spirit dwells within; for the body, we allow, is as it were its tabernacle.”

Theodore Beza & Anthony Faius

Propositions & Principles of Divinity Propounded & Disputed in the University of Geneva by Certain Students of Divinity there, under Mr. Theodore Beza & Mr. Anthony Faius… (Edinburgh: Waldegrave, 1591), 15. ‘Of the Faculties of the Soul of Man’, p. 34

“5. Yet inasmuch as the soul, in bringing forth the effects of these proper qualities, does use the instrument of the body, whereunto it is personally united: in this respect also, man (wholly considered, but not in part) may be truly held to be created after the image of God.
…

7. …the body, to be short, being framed in a most wonderful decent sort, to yield obedience most readily, and without all wearisomeness unto the soul when it moved the same.”

Jerome Zanchi

H. Zanchius his Confession of Christian Religion… (d. 1590; Cambridge, 1599), ‘Observations of the same Zanchius upon his Own Confession’, pp. 289-90 The context in point 7 is Zanchi arguing the validity of the extra Calvinisticum, that they person, or hypostasis of the Son exists outside of the human flesh according to his divinity. In point 8 it is the denial of the real communication of properties, via the Person, of the natures (contra the Lutherans).

“7. …Indeed the soul (as is aforesaid) is wholly hypostasis to the head, giving life to it and sustaining it: but where? not in every part of the body, but only in that where the head itself is: and out of the head [the soul] is also wholly hypostasis to the feet, sustaining them too: not where the head is, but where the feet themselves are. Is then the union which the soul has with the head dissolved because out of the head it is wholly also in the feet?

8. Finally, that all things which have been spoken of this personal union [of Christ in two natures], may more plainly be declared, I add these also:

The soul is hypostasis to the eyes: to what eyes? such as they are: namely instruments used for sight, not for hearing: on the other side, to the ears, for hearing, not for seeing. So the Word was hypostasis to the human nature, not to destroy death, which was a property of the Word: but to suffer death, which was a property of the flesh.”

William Perkins

An Exposition of the Symbol or Creed of the Apostles… (Cambridge, 1595), p. 150

“…as in the like case the soul of man is wholly in the head and wholly in the feet, yea wholly in every part: and yet the soul cannot be said to use reason in the feet or in any other part, but only in the head.”

1600’s

Amandus Polanus

‘Analytical Theses on Colossians, containing the Exordium of the Epistle’, pt. 1 (on Col. 1:1-11) $3 Download tr. Jonathan Tomes (Basel: Johannes Schroeter, 1601)

“XIII… And a little later: “As the soul is in the body, so Christians are in the world.” The soul, although dispersed throughout all the members of the body, is nonetheless present in it; likewise, Christians, though they dwell in the world, are not of the world. The invisible soul is established as if in a garrison within the visible body; similarly, Christians are recognized while they sojourn in the world, but their divine worship is invisible. And a little later: Although the soul is enclosed in the body, it still preserves the body; likewise, although Christians are detained in the world as if in custody, they also preserve the world.”

Gisbert Voet

‘On the Natures of Things & Substantial Forms’, pp. 369-76 in Select Theological Disputations, vol. 1, pt. 2 tr. by AI by Onku (Utrecht: Johannes a Waesberg, 1648), ‘On Creation’, pt. 8 Latin

“7. In Corollary 1 I had said that the opinion of Taurellus and Gorlaeus about man as a being per accidens stumbles in many ways. The argument by which they are moved is such. Two beings or complete substances make one per accidens and not per se: but the body and soul of man are two complete substances. Therefore.

I. That man is a species of substance and animal created into one essence or nature from soul and body, we think is implied in Gen. 3:7, 1 Cor. 15:45, compared with Gen. 1:26-27.

III. The true human nature of Christ would not be more one substance through itself than in the death of the same
…
[These articles are about Christ, man, the soul and angels]
…

IX. This opinion even impinges on many metaphysical dogmas…

…
5. That man is not a substance nor does he directly pertain to the predication of substance: but only indirectly, and per accidens is referred to it, since he is a being per accidens and collective.

6. That one man is no more one per se, than an army, a city, etc. where there are many men collectively.

7. That consequently man cannot be defined by an essential and perfect definition.

8. That the matter and form of a composite are properly matter, and its form is the union, that is an accident, or pure mode, namely a relation. See Gorlaeus, Exercit. 14, p. 266.

9. That the union of the human soul with its body is to be sought in some mere accident from those five, and indeed in position or posture: as some seem to concede.

10. That the body is not the nature of man, but only his instrument, through which the soul existing in the body operates.”

Andreas Essenius

‘Theological Disputation on the Image of God in Man’ Download tr. Jonathan Tomes (Utrecht: Johannes Waesberg, 1653) Latin

“IV… The soul, being simple and immaterial—opposite to material things—existing wholly in the whole body and in each of its parts, [in the Garden of Eden] subsisted independently of the body in both being and operation, and it would have persisted independently of the body even after death, contrary to the claims of Socinus.”

Nehemiah Rogers

The Fast Friend: or a Friend at Midnight: Set forth in an Exposition on that Parable, Lk. 11:5-11… (London, 1658)

“…as the soul of man is said to be in the head or heart, so conceive of God’s being in Heaven. The soul (we know) animates the whole body of man, and by the presence of it in every member communicates life to the whole: yet by way of preeminency and excellency it is said to be in the head or heart of man, because in these two parts of man, and from thence she exercises her cheifest functions, and derives her cheifest influence.”

Peter van Mastricht

Theoretical-Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 3, bk. 4, ch. 3, ‘Actual Sin’, sections 24

“XXIV. It is asked, fifth, whether infants before all use of reason are subject to actual sin…

The Reformed, although they acknowledge that original corruption is actually present in infants, from which by nature they are prone to all actual sins, and moreover bear in themselves the seeds of the same, nonetheless deny that they are properly subject to any actual sin…

Nevertheless they object:… (2) That the human mind consists in actual thought, which can not only be congruent with divine law, but also repugnant to it. I respond: (1) That the human mind is a thinking substance which, with organs adequately disposed, can think, we do not doubt, just as it is a reasoning substance, not because it is always reasoning in actuality, but because it can reason, with necessary things put in place.”

Historical

On Aquinas

Feser, Edward – Aquinas: a Beginner’s Guide (OneWorld, 2010), ch. 4, ‘Psychology’

‘The Soul’, pp. 114-22
‘Hylemorphic Dualism’, pp. 138-47

Feser is an analytical Thomist.

“…to take a simple bodily action as an example, the intellect and will constitute the formal-cum-final cause of the action, of which the firing of the neurons, flexing of the muscles, and so on are the material-cum-efficient causes. That it is a bodily action is due to its matter and the way the bodily parts interact; that it is a bodily action with a certain specific end in view (rather than an involuntary reflex or an unconscious robotic movement) is due to its form and final cause.

There are not (as there are for the Cartesian dualist) two substances with events going on in each that are somehow mysteriously correlated. There is one substance and one set of events having both formal and material, and final- and efficient-causal components.” – pp. 141-42

On the Post-Reformation

Article

Goudriaan, Aza – ch. 4, ‘The Human Being: His Soul & Body, Special Status & Conscience’ in Reformed Orthodoxy & Philosophy, 1625–1750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht & Anthonius Driessen Buy (Brill, 2006), pp. 234-59 See especially pp. 252-59 on Driessen.

If body and spirit form one substance, as matter and form respectively, per the Aristotelian/Thomist hylemorphist view of Voet and Mastricht, there is little difficulty in conceiving that the spirit can affect the body. If however, per Descartes, the body and soul are two different substances of a completely different kind, then the issue of how the two can interact at all becomes pressing.

Driessen was very much influenced by the growing Cartesianism of the day. Upon such a paradigm, three main views could be conceived as to how the body and soul related: (1) Physical Influence; (2) Occasional Causes; (3) Pre-Established Harmony. Driessen argued for the first option. Goudriaan explains and surveys them all.

On the Brain & Intellect Connection

Articles

2000’s

Feser, Edward

‘Persons’ in Philosophy of Mind: a Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999 / 2006), pp. 211–33

‘Inventing the Mind-Body Problem’ in The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 2008), pp. 184-99

“…the Scholastic view (which… committed as it is to an Aristotelian understanding of causation on which the connection between the mind and the world is not especially problematic)…

Thus was invented [by the mechanical philosophy in the mid-1600’s with Descartes and others] the famous ‘mind-body problem'” It seems that mind cannot possibly be reduced to matter; and yet it also seems that the mind could not possibly interact with the material world in the way it does if it was not itself material. How to resolve the paradox? That’s the problem.

It has appeared to some philosophers to be unsolvable; and it is unsolvable if one clings pathologically (as contemporary philosophers do) to the mechanistic assumptions that created the problem in the first place.

The only way to solve it is to return to the Aristotelian-Thomistic conception of the soul as the form of the body, having certain immaterial operations but nevertheless ‘interacting’ with the material world as a formal rather than an efficient cause.” – pp. 198-99

Books

Cooney, Brian – A Hylomorphic Theory of Mind Ref (P. Lang, 1991) 226 pp.

Abstract: “This book presents a contemporary application of Aristotle’s metaphysical concepts to the domains of biology and psychobiology. Professor Cooney reconstructs the form/matter or hylomorphic analysis of organisms and mental functions by linking Aristotle’s concept of form to that of information in biological control systems. The resulting hylomorphic theory challenges the orthodoxy of contemporary philosophy by offering an alternative to both materialism and dualism. Professor Cooney makes his book accessible to a wide audience by providing clear digests of the scientific information and philosophical issues relevant to his arguments.”

Jaworski, William – Structure & the Metaphysics of Mind: How Hylomorphism Solves the Mind-Body Problem Pre (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016) 340 pp. ToC

Quotes

Order of

Shedd
Budziszewski
Feser

1800’s

William G.T. Shedd

Dogmatic Theology (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1888), vol. 2, ch. 2, ‘Man’s Primitive State’, p. 100

“Spiritual substance is distinguished from matter by the characteristic of self-motion, or motion ab intra [from inside]. Matter must be moved from without, by another material substance impinging upon it. But mind moves from within. Its motion is not from external impact, but is self-motion.

Adam was created a spirit. The instant, therefore, that he was created, he had all the characteristics that distinguish spirit from matter. One of these, and one of the most important, is self-motion. But self-motion is self-determination, and self-determination is inclination. The Scripture asserts that Adam was created a ‘living soul.’ Life implies motion; and the motion in this case was not mechanical or material, but the motion of mind. Thus in creating a rational spirit, God creates a self-moving essence, and this is a self-determining will.”

2000’s

J. Budziszewski

‘Telephones & Free Will’ Budziszewski is a Thomist.

“‘Now that we know about brain physiology, it’s obvious that there could be no such thing as free will.’

That’s like saying that the circuitry of a cellphone determines the conversations which takes place on it.”

Edward Feser

The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 2008), ch. 4, ‘The Soul’, p. 127

“Similarly, the soul of a man isn’t a complete substance; only the soul and body (i.e. the form and matter) together constitute a thing or substance, that is, a man. It isn’t the soul that thinks when a man uses his intellect; it is the man himself who thinks, just as it is the man himself, and not the soul, who grows taller, digests his food, and walks around. For this reason, it is not at all surprising that human thought should be very closely correlated with certain brain events even if it is not identical to any of them.

Since the soul is the form of the body, including the brain, the connection between them is in many ways like the connection between the form of the some particular table–its round shape, its having four legs, its being brown, etc.–and the matter that make up the table; that is, it i bound to be very close indeed.

When the intellect determines that a certain course of action is the best one to take and the will follows it, the body proceeds to move in a way that constitutes the action. The operation of intellect and will constitute in this case is the formal-cum-final caue of the action, of which the firing of the neurons, flexing of the muscles, etc. are the material cause.

Then there is the fact that even though the intellect itself operates without any bodily organ, it does depend indirectly on the senses for the raw material from which it abstracts universals or essences (e.g. it abstracts the universal ‘triangularity’ from particular triangles it has perceived). And the sense organs, along with the brain events associated with perceptual experiences, are material.

But precisely because the operation of the intellect are not directly dependent on the matter of the brain, the parallel with the form of a table is not exact. If the soul can, unlike the form of a table, function apart from the matter it informs (as it does in thought), then it can also, and again unlike the form of a table, exist apart from the matter it informs, as a kind of incomplete substance.”

Immortal Souls: a Treatise on Human Nature (Editiones Scholasticae, 2024), pt. 3, ‘What is a human being?’

ch. 8, ‘Against Materialism’

p. 326

“…it must be emphasized that the Aristotelian position Ross represents (and that I am defending in this book) does not deny that, in the normal case, material processes are necessary for thought. Rather, it denies that they are sufficient for it.”

p. 328

“It must also be kept in mind that for the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, human beings and their operations are, like other natural substances and processes, to be analyzed in terms of formal, material, efficient and final causes, which together form an irreducible unity.

In the case of a thought (such as the thought that snow is white) the neural processes associated with the relevant phantasms [sensory experience or memory] might be regarded as the material cause of a single event of which the intellective activity is the formal cause.

To be sure, the analysis of human thought and action in terms of the Aristotelian four-causal explanatory framework is a more complicated business than that suggests. But it is only if that framework is rejected that to acknowledge that there are immaterial aspects of thought can seem to open up what Dillard calls “an apparently unbridgeable gulf between thought and behavior.” And to reject it without argument would simply be to beg the question against the Aristotelian-Thomistic view.”

ch. 9, ‘Neither computers nor brains’, ‘Arguments from neuroscience’, p. 440

“As I have emphasized, the Aristotelian position acknowledges that sensory experience, mental imagery, emotion, and other mental attributes we share with non-human animals are entirely corporeal or bodily. It also holds that the intellect depends on the senses, and thus the body and brain, for informational input.

It also holds that the intellect depends on the senses, and thus the body and brain, for informational input. Moreover, the Aristotelian allows that even when concepts have been abstracted from mental imagery, the intellect still, in the normal course of things, makes use of imagery when entertaining even the most abstract ideas and lines of reasoning. That too depends on brain activity.

And it cannot be emphasized too strongly that these are not concessions the Aristotelian has been forced to make in light of modern neuroscientific findings. On the contrary, these are things that Aristotelians have been saying for centuries. Hence there is nothing in what modern neuroscience has discovered about the mind that need be remotely troubling to the Aristotelian. Indeed it is precisely the sort of thing Aristotelian philosophy of mind would lead us to expect.”

Historical

On Aristotle

eds. Gregoric & Fink – Encounters with Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind Pre (Routledge, 2021) ToC

Charles, David – The Undivided Self: Aristotle & the ‘Mind-Body Problem’ Pre (Oxford Univ. Press, 2021) 287 pp. ToC

Latin Article

1600’s

Voet, Gisbert – Of the Union of the Soul to the Body in Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 1, tract 3 Abbr.

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