Prime Matter inquiry

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Posted by Apparition
9/17/2017 12:35 pm
#1

Hey everyone! 
I am currently writing a paper on Aristotle's Prime Matter. Currently, whether Aristotle personally adopted the doctrine is still up for debate (while Aquinas adopted it in his metaphysics). While Aristotle didn't explicitly state his adherence to it, one can easily infer from his concepts of change, substancehood, act/potency, etc. that Prime Matter follows necessarily. As such, I want to try and defend Prime Matter from a specific objection, namely, how can we describe properties to prime matter (e.g., indeterminate, non-essential, capable of receiving any form whatsoever, etc.) if prime matter is "essentially" without any properties? How can we speak of the properties of prime matter if it doesn't have any? Is "essentially unessential" a contradiction? Are there ways to speak of something without positing properties to it? Thanks guys! Any help would be awesome!

 

 
Posted by Callum
9/22/2017 2:07 pm
#2

Isn't prime matter essentially pure potentiality?

 


 
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