But then it becomes another substantial form. It is not the same substantial form as before, because it has changed. What does it mean to say that the form of wood qua wood is the same form as the form of ash in that case, and when it was wood it had a potential to be another substantial form other than itself? That seems to me to crossing into nonsense territory, even. How can we even differentiate substantial forms like that; what on earth could mean "a substantial form X, which is X, has the potential to be a substantial form Y which is not X, and then substantial form X becomes substantial form Y but it is still somehow the same form"? That's nonsense.

That's not the only problem, however. As I argued, hylemorphism may be necessary to account for other facts as well, such as the problem of the one and the many and individualization, and our own capacity for knowledge -- the identity between the intelligible form and the real form, which must be maintained to account for real knowledge, but also the distinction between those two instantiations, and universality x particularity.

RomanJoe,

I think we can do what you suggest by expanding form to include the "form" of final causation. But first, one can dispense with prime matter by considering a form, considered in isolation from the thing of which it is the form, as entirely potential. A thing, then, is the actualization of this potential through the action of Pure Act, i.e., God as the sustainer of all things in existence. And so, a thing is a composite of form and God's actualizing power. Since (because of Divine Simplicity) God's actualizing power is the same as God's intellect, one can consider all things as ideas in the mind of God. This includes the ideas we would call final causes. Change is accounted for by the actualization of these final causes, for example, that a seed's form includes its propensity for becoming a plant, with Pure Act providing the ultimate efficient cause for its sprouting.

This also removes the difference between physical and non-physical things. A physical thing has a form which is, so to speak, "bulked out" with molecular constituents, while a non-physical thing isn't. One consequence is that material causes, like final causes, can be seen as embedded in the formal cause, so reducing the number of causes to two, formal and efficient.

As I see it, this is a simpler ontology than hylomorphism, without losing any explanatory power.

RomanJoe wrote:

What you say is interesting. I'm wondering, what do you make of Feser idea that prime matter HAS to exist if there is to be any change at all? Feser discusses this in Scholastic Metaphysics. He argues that since form is merely an actualizing principle, there has to be some determinable unactualized material which it can actualize. I guess one could argue that maybe we're treading too close to violating ex nihilo nihil fit if we don't have prime matter and merely see form as solely capable of taking on new forms without the aid of a purely potential substratum.

The reason prime matter is thought to be needed for change is that, being formless, it allows "room", so to speak, for form/matter composites to alter, and to come and go. But Pure Act is also formless (though the name given to that formlessness is usually 'simplicity'). Being formless, it too provides that room, while at the same time providing the energy for the change, which prime matter cannot provide. Feser's argument presupposes that it is the form of an actual being that actualizes the next actualized being in a causal sequence. I would say instead that the form only channels the Energy which is Pure Act that results in the actualized effect. So ex nihilo nihil fit still holds, in that new actualized things come from actualized things. It is just a question of what provides the actualizing power.

Another thing prime matter is said to provide is individuality. Two things with identical forms (perhaps, two electrons) are individualized by that form being composed with distinct bits of prime matter. (At least, this is how I understand it). But that same function can be provided by Pure Act -- the two things with identical form being separately actualized, in different places or different times.

 

RomanJoe wrote:

So what is exactly being actualized in this scenario though? With prime matter at least there is a potential substratum which needs to be determined by a prior actual cause.

Form is being actualized. This is not to say that there are non-actualized forms hanging around waiting to be actualized. (While AT says that there is no prime matter existing outside of form, in my scenario, there are no forms that are not actualized. We can, nevertheless, make a logical distinction between a form and its actualization.) However, not all forms are physically actualized. They can also be actualized as thoughts in our minds or in divine minds, and ultimately they are all thoughts in the mind of God.

With human artifacts this can be understood as someone having in mind a thing to be fashioned -- that's a form actualized as thought -- followed by drawing sketches -- form actualized as drawings -- followed by construction of the thing -- form as physically actualized. In each step, use is made of existing actualized forms -- simple concepts for thoughts, ink and paper for sketches, wood or whatever for the physical thing, and use is made of the form of the previous step. So the finished object contains the original thought-form.

For natural objects, I would say a similar process is carried out by divine mind or minds. In the first place, I consider the form of, say, a plant, to consist of its entire life cycle, so a seed is just a part of the whole form, as is the full-grown plant. So what I am suggesting is that this life-cycle form exists outside of physical reality, and then gets particularized with this non-physical form being physically elaborated by filling it out with existing molecular forms, with the energy required to make this happen being God as Energy. So it is forms "all the way down" being channeled by existing forms, propelled by Energy.

But in this case how is it that they can be actualized in different places and different times? Wouldn't it be the case that the actualizing power had to actualize some potential for existence at a specific point in space-time? The question would arise to what limits that actualizing power and makes it take on specificity. But then we would be right back at prime matter as the undetermined material that is joined to actuality and by consequence individuates it.

Well, spacetime itself is continually being actualized as the spatiotemporal relations of physical objects (that is, I take a Leibnizian rather than a Newtonian view of space and time). So there is no prior space in which actualization takes place. Rather, actualization of physical objects creates space. But I'm not sure if this is enough to answer your question. The ultimate answer is: the Will of God determines where particles get actualized. At the risk of excessive anthropormorphization, one could say that physical reality is a picture in the mind of God, and just as the will of a painter determines where each color splotch is placed, so are the relative positions of each particle placed -- that is, thought into existence -- by God. The arrangement of objects is a form being actualized just as much as the form of each object.

This also brings up something else. How would you explain abstraction of forms into their universal mode from their concrete and particular mode without an appeal to something like prime matter? What metaphysical principle are we abstracting from? Wouldn't we need an explanation for why universal forms are particularized?

I don't see how abstraction needs a different explanation than that of AT -- it is the recognition of form. We are recognizing that a gold ring, say, has the form of a circle, but it is a circle elaborated by gold atoms, which are also forms, as distinct from the pure circular form which is actualized by thinking. All abstraction is the identifying of form, and I don't see how this differs whether the ultimate constituents are an actualization by form of (formless) prime matter, or they are actualizations of form by (formless) Pure Act.

As to why universals are particularized, I would say in some cases it is the will of the actualized universal (e.g. a biological species) to try itself out in physical reality, by clothing itself, so to speak, in molecular forms, borrowing, so to speak, existing molecular forms and channeling Pure Act to do so. In other cases, it is the use of non-physical forms (for example, mathematical objects) as the base form for elaborations in physical form (e.g., setting mathematical laws of physics in order to create a physical universe).

I realize that I am speculating here and there, but this is just to indicate that reality without prime matter poses no unresolvable problems, at least that I can see.